GrainCorp managing director Mark Irwin acknowledged that the company’s merchandise arm had suffered a terrible year, posting a $23 million loss, largely on the back of fertiliser and chemical write-downs of $11.3 million.

It is yet another disappointing result for the troubled sector, which has failed to live up to expectations since being set up as a diversification project in 1996 to sell fertiliser, which then evolved into the AgPlus brand around four years later.

The AgPlus moniker was dropped last year, and the arm became GrainCorp Merchandise.

"There’s certainly blood on the walls when it comes to the merchandise business, and it will certainly be looked at as part of our strategic review," Mr Irwin said.

"We've been upfront all the way through about the difficulties the business was facing in light of declining input prices, and now we are taking a look at what needs to happen in that area."

However, he was not confident the merchandise sector would be able to immediately bounce back, saying that the issues which afflicted the wider industry this year had not cleared up.

"It's still tough seasonally in many areas, the conditions are still challenging and we don't necessarily see a change to those fundamentals."

However, it was a much rosier picture in other income streams, Mr Irwin hailing a string of ‘wonderful’ performances in areas such as marketing, logistics and ports.

The storage and logistics sector turned around a net loss in the 2008 full year to post earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of $44 million this year.

Mr Irwin made special mention of the ports business, which posted an EBIT of $65 million, while the trading division had profits of $25 million.

Overall, the company posted a total profit after tax of $63 million.