Natural Resources Research Articles

Australian agricultural scale and corporate agroholdings: environmental and climatic impacts

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-28-2017

Journal Title

International Food and Agribusiness Management Review

ISSN

eISSN 1559-2448

Keywords

Climatic variability, Large scale agroholdings, Climate, Broadacre farming, Environmental factors

Disciplines

Agribusiness | Agricultural Economics | Agricultural Science | Agronomy and Crop Sciences | Climate | Environmental Health and Protection | Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment | Environmental Monitoring | Meteorology | Natural Resources Management and Policy

Abstract

The average size of Australian farms in scale and revenue are the globe’s largest. This scale is a result, in part, of low average rural population densities; development patterns in broadacre production; low levels of effective public policy transfers; a stable and suitable institutional setting suitable for corporate and other large scale investment; and low yields. It is also a factor of the natural variability of the country’s climatic systems which have contributed to the scale of extensive northern cattle production; this variability has implications for the pattern of ownership of broadacre and extensive production. Corporate ownership, tends to concentrate production aggregations at sufficient scale to offset its additional overheads in areas of relative climatic stability and to replicate these agroholding aggregations spatially to protect the stability of revenue flows. Family structures are more dominant in areas of greater climatic variability. Of interest is the impact that any increasing climatic variability (versus rapid changes in technology) may have upon this pattern.

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