July 10, 2017
The average Australian farmer is 56 years old and has been farming for 35 years, according to the latest Agricultural Census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
On average, farmers are 17 years older than average Australian worker, who is 39 years old.
The average farmer is also likely to be a man raising livestock or growing wheat, though 22 per cent of farmers are women.
The Agricultural Census for 2015-16 – a snapshot of who grew what, where, and with how much water – found there were 85,681 agricultural businesses across Australia, 952 more than the year before.
Queensland was the most agricultural state, devoting the biggest proportion of its land to farming.
Of the 371 million hectares used for agriculture across Australia, 34 per cent was in Queensland.
Despite that, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria were the equal largest contributors to the value of Australian agricultural production in 2015-16.
The biggest change in farming was a big increase in Australian fruit and nut production in 2015-16.
Avocado, almond and olive production spiked that year, as more new orchards started producing fruit, along with cherries, oranges and mandarins.
The downside of this change is there are now thousands more trees vying for water across some of Australia’s major irrigation regions.
But the upside has seen more employment and economic activity in areas like the Murray River valley and the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area in NSW.
Australian farms also used less water in 2015-16 than in the previous year – an average 107 megalitres, down 3 per cent.
This was partly because there was less water available to use in what was generally a warm, dry year.
A snapshot of the 2015-16 Agricultural Census can be found on the ABS website
