It’s Australia Day in the Australian Year of the Farmer. What great day to recognise what an amazing job Australian farmers do producing food and fibre. Aussie farmers feed between 60 and 80 million people world wide, are world leaders in the adoption of conservation agriculture and produce over 90% of Australia’s food.

A few facts about these remarkable Australians- Farmers

Over the last 30 recorded years (1974-75 to 2003-04), Australian farms have consistently achieved average productivity growth of 2.8%-a-year – no other Australian industry, with the sole exception of telecommunications and information technology, comes close to this achievement.

Australian farms and their closely related sectors generate $155 billion-a-year in production – underpinning 12% of GDP.

Agriculture supports the jobs of 1.6 million Australians, in farming and related industries, across our cities and regions – accounting for 17.2% of the national workforce.

Natural Resource Management is a fundamental activity on Australian farms. In fact, 94.3% ofAustralian farms actively undertake Natural Resource Management.

Australian farmers spent $3 billion on Natural Resource Management (NRM) over 2006-07, managing or preventing weed, pest, land and soil, native vegetation or water-related issues on their properties. More than $2.3 billion was spent on weed and pest management, while land and soil-related activities accounted for $649 million of total expenditure.

52% of farmers undertake activities to protect native vegetation, 45% wetland protection and 49% river or creek bank protection.

As a result, Australian farming is world-leading and ultra-competitive. In fact, despite a 50% fall in agricultural terms of trade since 1960, Australian farmers have tripled their production, as well as quadrupled the real gross value of their produce (from $10.557 billion in 1960-61 to $43.3 billion in 2007-08).

More facts about Australian agriculture check out NFF Farm Facts