Download 25 August 2017: 2017 AGM Chair Presentation PDF Document

I will now present my Chairman's report.

FY17 was a challenging year, with our smallest crop to market in many years and difficult market conditions.

But, like the generations before us, we persevered. Our industry and our Company are known for their resilience and we saw this shine through in many ways over the past 12 months.

As a result of the excellent work of CEO Rob Gordon and our management team in implementing our Group strategy, our FY17 results, while down, were better than could have reasonably been expected given the circumstances.

Rob will provide insight into these results next and, as promised, also provide guidance on how FY18 is progressing.

Importantly, we were able to retain key markets and Riverina capability by supporting rice production in Crop Year 16. We did this through offering a guaranteed fixed paddy price to growers and A Class Shareholders of $415 a tonne for medium grain through our Rice Pool business. This required a supplement from the Profit Businesses of $32.5 million, which was made possible due to the strength of our International Rice business.

Our Rice Pool and Profit Businesses complement each other and allow us to ride out adversity for different parts of the Group at different times, benefitting all.

Despite the challenging conditions, overall profitability and balance sheet strength enabled us to again pay the record Dividend return set last year of 33 cents per B Class Share.

The decision to supplement the Rice Pool enabled SunRice to secure the long-term viability of the Australian rice industry and Riverina growers - fundamental elements of our strategy to maintain multiple global supply chains to sustain SunRice's business, especially in volatile times.

In addition to securing Riverina supply, as you know, SunRice was very busy sourcing medium grain during the year to supply our remaining branded markets.

This was successfully done, with the majority supplied from Vietnam. When I used to think of Vietnam I had a few perceptions involving small paddy fields and water buffaloes. Times have moved on. During a recent tour of our supply chain, I saw 10 tonne per hectare medium grain in a 1000-hectare field. The equipment was smaller scale, but highly mechanised. Water was free of charge from the Mekong Delta, and farmers were doing two crops per year at wages a fraction of the cost of those here.