NFF launches Farm Facts 2011

THE National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) has released Farm Facts 2011. Farm Facts is published each year as a compendium of useful and authoritative facts and figures about Australian agriculture, based on fully attributed data from independent sources. Headline data from the 2011 publication reveals: * There are 135,996 farms in Australia. Farmers occupy and manage 61% of Australia’s landmass and 94.3% of Australian farms actively undertake Natural Resource Management. * Australian farms and their closely related sectors generate $155 billion-a-year in production, underpinning 12% of GDP. * Australian farmers produce almost 93% of Australia’s daily domestic food supply, while 60% of farm produce is destined for international markets. * Despite the worst drought on record, Australia’s farm exports earned the country $32.1 billion last year. * While 318,000 people are directly employed on Australian farms, 1.6 million Australian jobs hinge on farm production. * Despite common misconceptions, government support for Australian farms represents just 4% of farming income. By comparison, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, in Norway it is 61%, it is Korea 52%, in the European Union it is 23%, in Canada it is 17%, and in the United States it is 9%. In fact, Australian farmers are among the most self-sufficient in the world. Farm Facts, now in its fourth edition, is a fast reference to top-of-mind national and state-by-state facts about Australia’s farm sector, as well as specific references for drilling down to data on Australia’s leading agricultural commodities covering: Beef, Cotton, Dairy, Dried Fruits, Goats, Grains, Rice, Sheep Meat, Sugar and Wool. The annualised data is accurate as to the last recorded production period. However, given the recent floods across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, SA and WA, any forecasts on 2010-11 production will vary and this has been noted where applicable. All data in Farm Facts 2011 is available from the http://www.nff.org.au/farm-facts.html[Farm Facts] and http://www.nff.org.au/commodities.html[Commodities] pages of the NFF website. The publication can be downloaded in full below and from the ‘Farm Facts’ page of this website. [ENDS]