The Timbercorp Grower Group, representing 7000 Timbercorp almond investors, will petition the Supreme Court for formal recognition of their cropping rights.

Group chairman Chris Garnaut said Justice Ross Robson had previously given Timbercorp liquidators KordaMentha a power of sale but said the growers' "valuable cropping rights" should be recognised.

Mr Garnaut said these rights had been pushed aside by the liquidators' selling most of the Timbercorp almond assets to Olam at "fire sale" prices.

Growers had invested more than $395 million in Timbercorp almond projects, but were facing a return so small it may cost more to "draw the cheques and post them", he said.

Mr Garnaut said independent agricultural economist Stephen Lynch had valued the assets at about $210 million. A Singapore analyst from JPMorgan called the Olam deal a "steal", with an asset replacement cost of about $400 million.

The Olam sale involves the purchase of six almond groves in Victoria covering 8096 hectares of land, and includes 40,825 megalitres of permanent water rights, as well as all irrigation works.

Olam, a leading global supplier of agricultural products and food ingredients, operates in 60 countries, has more than 6000 customers and last year had sales of $7 billion.

Mr Garnaut said that if ANZ, the major secured lender in a syndicate of banks, got its way, "investors will get next to nothing of the $128 million".

ANZ and the other banks last Friday offered growers only $6 million.

In contrast, Mr Lynch valued the "valuable cropping rights" at more than $40 million.

Mr Garnaut said investors provided more than 72 per cent of the funding for the almond projects but were being offered less than 4 per cent of the sale proceeds. Banks had contributed just 28 per cent ($150 million) of the funding yet wanted more than 96 per cent of the proceeds.

Growers had been let down by the liquidators, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and Timbercorp, he said.