December 11, 2012
The number of farmers in Australia is dropping by almost 300 a month, according to a report released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
There were 19,700 fewer farmers in Australia in 2011 than in 2006, a fall of 11 per cent over five years.
Over the 30 years to 2011, the number of farmers declined by 40 per cent or 106,200, equating to an average of 294 fewer farmers every month over that period.
The ABS says major droughts have had a big impact on the farming workforce. For example, there was a decline of 15 per cent in just 12 months in the midst of the 2002-03 drought.
Types of Farms
The 2010-11 Agricultural Census found that there were 135,000 farm businesses across Australia. The majority of these were involved in specialised beef cattle farming (28 per cent), mixed grain-sheep or grain-beef cattle farming (9 per cent), other grain growing (9 per cent) or specialised sheep farming (8 per cent).
Other common types of farming businesses included dairy cattle farming (6 per cent), mixed sheep-beef cattle farming (5 per cent) and grape growing (4 per cent).
Despite agricultural production being increasingly concentrated in large farms in recent decades, the majority of Australia’s farms are comparatively small.
In 2010-11, just over half (55 per cent) had an estimated value of agricultural operations of less than $100,000.
There were, however, a small number (7700 or 6 per cent) of large farms with estimated agricultural operations in excess of $1 million.
In all, the value of agricultural production across both large and small farms in Australia in 2010-11 was $46 billion, accounting for 2.4 per cent of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product.
The majority of farms were also small in terms of land area, with about a third covering less than 50ha (36 per cent), and a similar proportion between 50 and 500ha.
Conversely, there were a small number (100) of massive farms that occupied more than 500,000ha, which is more than twice the land area of the Australian Capital Territory.
The total area of agricultural land in 2011 amounted to 410 million hectares or just over half (53 per cent) of the nation’s land mass.
In Queensland, agriculture occupies 81 per cent of the State.
Types of Farmers
In 2011, there were 157,000 farmers in Australia. Around half of these were mixed crop and livestock farmers (22 per cent), beef cattle farmers (20 per cent) or dairy farmers (8 per cent).
Among the less common types were sugar cane growers (2 per cent), flower growers (1 per cent) and apiarists (less than 1 per cent). There were also 223 goat farmers and 56 deer farmers.
Men make up the majority (72 per cent) of farmers. The proportion of female farmers has fallen slightly in recent decades (from 30 per cent in 1981).
Australia’s farmers tend to be considerably older than other workers. In 2011, the median age of farmers was 53 years, compared with 40 years for people in other occupations. In 2011, almost a quarter (23 per cent) of farmers were aged 65 years or over, compared with just 3 per cent of people in other occupations. The tendency of farmers to work beyond the traditional retirement age may reflect the decline in younger generations taking over family farms.
Only 11 per cent of Australian farmers were born overseas, compared with 26 per cent of the total population. Of the 17,000 farmers who reported being born overseas, the most common place of birth was the United Kingdom (20 per cent) followed by countries in Southern and South Eastern Europe (17 per cent), South-East Asia (16 per cent), and New Zealand (12 per cent).
In 2011, there were 93,300 farming families. Almost half (48 per cent) of these comprised a couple living by themselves (compared with 38 per cent of other families), many of whom were likely to have had older children no longer living at home.
Of those families with children living at home, farming families were slightly larger on average than other families (4.0 people compared with 3.7). Close to a third (29 per cent) of farming families with children had three or more children, compared with one-fifth (20 per cent) of other families.
Of those people who had been married, farmers were much less likely than other people to be divorced or separated (8 per cent compared with 18 per cent).
Over the three decades to 2011, the proportion of Australian farmers with non-school qualifications more than doubled, from 15 per cent to 38 per cent. The proportion of farmers with a certificate-level qualification doubled over this period, while the proportion with a bachelor degree or above increased six-fold.
While the trend towards formal education among farmers mirrors the shift across all occupations, the increase among farmers in proportional terms has outstripped that among other occupations. That said, farmers were still less likely than people in other occupations to hold non-school qualifications.
Working Hours & Income
In 2011, half of farmers worked 49 hours or more a week. Only 17 per cent of other workers put in such long hours. More than half (56 per cent) of Australia’s farmers were self-employed owner managers (compared with 15% of other workers), with a further 17% working as employees managing farms owned by someone else.
Despite working such long hours, the average weekly disposable income of farmers in 2009-10 ($568) was considerably lower than that of people working in other occupations ($921). However, the fact that most farmers own and manage their own businesses means it can be difficult to analyse their personal financial circumstances in isolation from the financial arrangements of the farm. Losses from farm income, for instance, can be deferred over subsequent years and profits are often reinvested into the business.
The average equivalised net worth (taking into account both assets and liabilities) of farming households in 2009-10 was $1.3 million, much higher than the average across other households ($393,000). However, such high levels of wealth are not enjoyed by all farming households; 10 per cent of farming households could be classified as having relatively low levels of wealth (ie. in the lowest 40 per cent of the wealth distribution).
However, the bulk of farming households (71 per cent) were in the top 20 per cent of the wealth distribution.
The high levels of wealth explain why, despite relatively low income, only a fraction (5 per cent) of farming households are classified as having low economic resources, compared with a fifth (21 per cent) of other households.
