The bottom may have fallen out of share market values during this month's stormy trading sessions, but listed agribusinesses are proving to be a hardy bunch, handling the slump better than many big corporates.
Since late December market volatility and investor nervousness has taken its toll on much of the stock market, eroding about almost nine per cent from the total value of Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listings.
Slowing economic activity in China and the global oil production glut have badly bruised share markets hitting energy and financial companies hardest particularly in Australia where more than two thirds of the value of listed businesses is aligned to these sectors.
The ASX All Ordinaries Index is now trading about 1000 points below its levels last May, having gyrated between 5000 and 5400 since August, even slipping under 4900 points last week.
Typical of those feeling the pain is Queensland-based former government rail operator Aurizon which has lost about $4 billion from its market capitalisation since December 1 because its mineral related business, particularly iron ore haulage contracts for Chinese steel makers, have withered.
But while many leading share market names such as oil and gas specialist Santos, mining king BHP-Billiton or Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac have lost between 29 per cent and 9pc of their market values this month, many farm sector stocks defied the trend to rally above their November and December positions.
NSW and Victorian dairy business Bega Cheese ignored the early January ASX drop, rising to about $7.80 a share before riding the market down to $6.60, then bouncing to $7.20 this week.
While depressed trading sentiment did weigh on Bega's price, the current value is streets ahead of the $4.20/share investors were paying in August.
Victorian farming youngster Australian Dairy Farms was trading around 33c/share this week, which despite being below its late December high of 45c, is double its price early last month.
It's a similar story for farm services icon Elders, which although worth $4.70/share this week compared to $4.90 early this month, the stock has rebounded from a $4.60 low two weeks ago and since April has climbed from $2.70/share.
Despite a lean run with cropping season conditions, low receival volumes and tight competition in global grain markets, Australia's biggest listed agribusiness GrainCorp's share price recovered to around $8.30 early this week, up from November-December lows around $8 and a mid-January fall to $7.60.
"The market might be down, but its certainly not uniformly down," said corporate advisor and investment banking provider to agribusinesses, David Williams at Kidder Williams.
He said a "sea change" of interest in agribusiness investments by traditional share market investors and brokers during 2015 had proven to be a relatively good diversification decision in certain cases.
Although he warned agriculture was not immune to the "China factors" unsettling much of the Australian economy.
While Bega had almost doubled its share price based partly on market expectations around its infant formula production plan targeting China (in partnership with another share market high-flier, Blackmores), Mr Williams said Bega sensibly had a diverse portfolio of core cheese contracts with domestic retailers and other export markets not reliant on China.
"The world still needs its agricultural products, but maybe there's not so much demand growth from China at the moment," he said.
He noted cotton farming and nut producer Webster may be more exposed to subdued Chinese market influences than, for example, meat and livestock exporters Elders and Australian Agricultural Company.
"If China drops out of the red meat market it probably won't make so much difference given we've got markets growing across Asia, like Vietnam, and elsewhere, and there's huge US demand for hamburger meat," he said.
"It's a bit different if you're in the cotton industry exposed to China which takes 80pc of our crop and is sitting on a huge stockpile."
Mr Williams was heartened to see agribusinesses attracting the investment market, but he believed some investors had "overshot the mark a bit", expecting farm sector earnings to be more predictable - possibly comparable with food companies and retailers.
"It's not as easy as selling cream in a supermarket every day - with ag stocks there's enormous market and seasonal volatility to be managed, and expensive land and assets to maintain over a long period."
