Cultivation method in

Australia
Agriculture in Australia
Australia is a major agricultural producer and exporter, with over
325,300 employed in Agriculture, forestry and fishing as of
February 2015.[1] Agriculture and its closely related sectors earn
$155 billion-a-year for a 12% share of GDP. Australian farmers and
graziers own 135,997 farms, covering 61% of Australia's
landmass.[2] Across the country there is a mix of irrigation and dryland farming. The CSIRO, the federal government agency for
scientific research in Australia, has forecast that climate change
will cause decreased precipitation over much of Australia and that
this will exacerbate existing challenges to water availability and
quality for agriculture.[3]
For over 100 years, from the 1840s to the 1950s, the Australian
economy was seen to be riding on the sheep's back'. Agriculture,
especially wool, established Australia as a thriving economy with
a substantial workforce, service industries and large port cites.

Australian farmer with sheep, Courtesy of Agricorner

Australian agriculture benefitted from many different agricultural
practices, formal and informal land grants, overseas capital and

access to relatively cheap labour through Indigenous workers and

indentured schemes. Combined with invention, ingenuity and
hard work this has led to Australia becoming a leading exporter of
fine food, meats and grains.
However, from 1901 to 2009 there has been a dramatic decline
proportionally in the income from wool, and the people employed
in agriculture, from 14 per cent to 3 per cent. At the same time,
there has been an increase in the head of cattle and the variety of
profitable agricultural export industries. Most of Australia's
agricultural products continue to be exported and farmers supply
about 93 per cent of Australia's food.
There have been many changes in farming methods over the last
200 years and Australian farmers have had to be adaptable as
well as resilient and inventive. The challenges of access to fresh
water, the legacy of high amounts of fertilisers, massive clearing,
over grazing, a tyranny of distance, transport costs and feral
animals, have tested Australian farmers to their limits. In
response, farming has become more mechanised and reliant on
technologies, as well as holistic as it seeks to become more
sustainable.

Australia's main crops include

wheat, vegetables, fruits, cotton, sugarcane, barley, and
canola. Crops of somewhat lesser value to the economy include
oats, sunflower seeds, corn (maize), and tobacco.
The Australian rice industry is predominantly located in the
temperate climatic region of the Riverina in southern NSW. A
small area of rice is also grown in northern NSW. The major
varieties grown are temperate Japonica varieties which are
planted in October and harvested from March to May of the
following year.
They also practice my types of farming,they get major agricultural
products like 1. Cotton ,2.wool,3. Sugarcane,4.wheat .etc.

They also practice many types of farming mrthods;

They use different types of machine for each stage of cultivating

crops,

And also they practice horticulture , viticulture .

The wheat belt

Goyder's Line, map, Government of South Australia

The development of crops was limited by rainfall distribution, in
this case, 12 inches (30 centimetres) of rainfall a year. The
temperate buffer between the 20 and 12 inch rainfall lines,
separates the coastal areas from the semi-arid zones. This buffer
zone, suitable for cropping, became known as the wheat belt.
The 12 inch rain fall line was marked as the Goyder Line in South
Australia. This was drawn by South Australia's surveyor-general,
George W. Goyder in 1865 after two drought years to delineate
cropping country from extensive grazing land.
In the 1870s, however, after a series of wet years, optimistic
farmers ignored Goyder's warnings and moved beyond the 12
inch rainfall line. When a series of dry seasons occurred in the
1880s, many of the farmers were ruined. When the farmers
retreated the land was worse off due to the over-stocking.
The struggle to maintain the viability of this farming on the edge
of suitable rainfall distribution is still discussed by CSIRO as a
benchmark.
Never-the-less, South Australia's main wheat areas in the
temperate buffer zone were reasonably close to the coastal port
towns and it was the major wheat producer of the Australian
colonies until the 1890s. Tasmania was initially part of the
granaries of the east but lost out to South Australia as transport
costs were higher.
The modern wheat belt in the eastern states was established in
pastures west of the Great Dividing Range and railways
established rail heads in these areas in the 1870s. Victoria
surpassed South Australia's wheat production in the 1890s.
Western Australia became a major grain producer by 1905 and
then New South Wales became the premier producer in 1910 .