At a fiery AGM, several wheat growers attacked the board over its performance, accusing the company of loosing touch with the farming community and acting only in the interests of institutional shareholders.

Shareholders criticised the company's failed operation in Brazil, which lost nearly

$200 million, and accused it of secretly lobbying the Government to get rid of the single-desk system. Some shareholders also called for a new chairman.

AWB chairman Peter Polson rejected claims that the company had lobbied for the end to the single-desk system and argued that many of the write-offs experienced recently, including for its Landmark financial services arm, had their origins under a different board and chairman.

Mr Polson said its 2010 continuing operations pre-tax profit, before significant items, would be between $115 million and $140 million, up from $93 million last year.

''The world has moved on, whether we like it or not. AWB is a different entity today. But to say that AWB is not interested in the growers out there is not true,'' Mr Polson said.

Grower Roger Hatty said: ''To put it bluntly, you've lost the confidence of the growers. Unless you can rebuild that you cannot expect wheat growing to remain the core business of AWB.'' Another shareholder, Reg Holt, called on directors to ''get out of your suits, get some work clothes on and get out there amongst the harvesters''.

Shareholder advocate Stephen Mayne criticised AWB for what he called ''a frolic in Brazil'' and for bonus payments to a select group of directors. Mr Mayne also noted that AWB's shareholder register had flipped from about 60 per cent retail shareholders, most of them growers, and 40 per cent institutional shareholders, to the reverse, with a huge drop in the number of retail shareholders.

AWB closed up 2¢ at $1.10. It has lost 50 per cent over the course of 2009.