Agriculture

Australia is a major agricultural producer and exporter. Agriculture and its closely related sectors earn $155 billion-a-year for a 12% share of GDP. Australian farmers and graziers own 135,997 farms, covering 61% of Australia’s landmass. Across the country there is a mix ofirrigation and dry-land farming. The CSIRO has forecast that climate change will cause decreased precipitation over much of Australia and that this will exacerbate existing challenges to water availability and quality for agriculture.

Murray Grey beef cows and calves

There are three main zones: the high rainfall zone of Tasmania and a narrow coastal zone (used principally for dairying and beef production); wheat, sheep zone (cropping (principally winter crops), and the grazing of sheep (for wool, lamb and mutton) plus beef cattle) and the pastoral zone (characterised by low rainfall, less fertile soils, and large scale pastoral activities involving the grazing of beef cattle and sheep for wool and mutton). An indicator of viability of agriculture in the state of South Australia is whether land is within Goyder's Line.

Major agricultural products

Australia produces a large variety of primary products for both export and domestic consumption. The forecast top ten agricultural products by value are listed for year 2006-07, with production figures from previous years.^[6]

Commodity	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Cattle and calves	6,617	5,849	6,345	7,331	7,082	6,517
Wheat	6,356	2,692	5,636	4,320	5,905	6,026
Milk	3,717	2,795	2,808	3,194	3,268	3,245
Fruit and nuts	2,333	2,408	2,350	2,640	2,795	2,915
Vegetables	2,269	2,126	2,356	2,490	2,601	2,715
Wool	2,713	3,318	2,397	2,196	2,187	2,138
Barley	1,725	984	1,750	1,240	1,744	1,624
Poultry	1,175	1,273	1,264	1,358	1,416	1,461
Lambs	1,181	1,161	1,318	1,327	1,425	1,348
Sugar cane	989	1,019	854	968	1,037	1,208
Value in millions of Australian dollar