Profile James Moriarty

James Moriarty is the newest and youngest member of the Dried Fruits Australia board, representing corporate dried grape producer Duxton Dried Fruits.

Seeing an investment opportunity in dried grapes, the company – part of Adelaide-based Duxton Capital – acquired a 200-hectare property in Liparoo in 2015/16 and began developing another larger 600-hectare property in Euston in 2017.

James began working for Duxton in 2019 and shares its enthusiasm about the future of the dried grape industry.

Tell us about your role at Duxton and what led you there? I’m a portfolio manager at Duxton Capital and my role is in the investments team, where I work across several of the portfolio companies – including Duxton Dried Fruits – and act as a conduit between our investors, the board, operations teams and other key stakeholders.

The opportunity to work at Duxton attracted me because of the firm’s dynamic culture, investment philosophy and strong moral compass. I was drawn to the chance to apply my skillset within the agricultural industry and help promote Australia’s world-class produce to the world.

What do you enjoy most about your roles at Duxton and DFA?

The chance to work alongside a group of other growers and industry operators with the same primary common goal – to grow the economic value of Australia’s dried fruits industry. What opportunities do you see for the dried grape industry?

The opportunities and potential growth within the dried grape industry excite me enormously. In recent years, the industry has done a good job at arresting the exodus of local growers and supply and is now able to demonstrate that the industry is a viable and vibrant one into the future. Australia currently has a domestic supply and demand imbalance, whereby we produce approximately 40–50 per cent of our annual consumption, which means that more than one in every two dried grapes consumed in Australia is produced overseas. This is despite the fact that Australia produces the bestquality dried grapes in the world! So, if we can attract further investment into the industry to grow our supply, then we should be able to close that supply and demand imbalance and still have available supply for export opportunities. The key to attracting further investment is to have attractive returns, which are mainly driven by efficient farming techniques that drive commercial yields and strong pricing from the processors that stack up against the macroeconomic environment.

Can you tell us about anything new or innovative Duxton is doing? While our total plantings and presence in the dried fruits industry continues to grow, I think the most exciting area that Duxton is active in is the sustainability space. As a large landholder and producer across several different agricultural commodities, we see the huge potential that the sector has to make a tangible difference to the health of the planet and our environment. We’re pursuing a carbon-negative agenda, assessing the potential to not only reduce our footprint but also remove carbon from the atmosphere by changing our farming practices and regenerating non-productive acreage. Sustainability is a space that is receiving a lot of attention from our staff, our investors and the end consumer, so actively becoming an industry-leader and doing right by the environment aligns perfectly with Duxton’s philosophy.v