Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
it was clear that sheep and catle would do well on the pastures beyond the Great
Dividing Range. Wool, wheat and sugar were convenient products for transportation
to Britain in the first six or seven decades of colonial occupation, later supplemented
by frozen lamb and beef when refrigerated vessels began to leave Australian shores
in the 1870s. In line with Britain's interests in securing food and fibre from its colon-
ies, Australia developed an export-oriented agricultural system.
The reliance upon trade in agricultural products during the first 150 years of set-
tlement gave rise to the expression that Australia 'rode on the sheep's bak' (cur-
rently, it rides on the bak of mining dump truks). A setler colonial history of Brit-
ish legal systematics, property rights and sociopolitical arrangements, coupled with
European-style farming methods and the exporting of food staples - fortified by the
1850s gold rush - produced strong economic growth. Federation of the Australian
states in 1901 created national coherence in political decision-making and provided
a firm foundation for nation-building activities. During the first seventy years of
federation, protectionist policies and structures nurtured a widespread and robust
system of family-farm agriculture whih was accompanied by productivity-boosting
state-based rural researh and extension.
When Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973, markets for
many of Australia's agricultural exports collapsed. State and federal governments
of the day reacted by providing substantial public funds for rural 'adjustment' to
reduce market oversupply and to restructure farming along more efficient lines. In
some cases this meant paying farmers to pull out their healthy fruit trees or grape
vines, in others it meant giving farmers a 'golden handshake' to leave the land. For
a number of policy analysts - particularly conservatively-trained Canberra-based
agricultural economists in the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Eco-
nomics (ABARE) - public 'handouts' were anathema to an emerging free-market
ideology. To these bureaucrats, it was clear that the protectionist setings that had
given some stability to farmers were now hindering capital accumulation. They ar-
gued strongly for the removal of regulatory barriers to trade and endorsed the im-
portance of competition in agriculture. Exposure to 'market forces' was shorthand
for embracing increasing returns to scale, fostering intensification and specializa-
tion, promoting the closer links of farming to corporate agribusiness, and removing
government protection and subsidization from agriculture. Facing continuing cost-
price (terms-of-trade) pressures, farmers struggled as they were progressively ex-
posed to the ikle world marketplace. Yet, the farmers' own industry organization,
