The peculiarities of agriculture in Australia is that it uses a huge amount of land per worker, and there is also the opportunity for extra-year-round livestock keeping on pasture. During its development, there were no feudal remnants, there was advanced agricultural equipment and a relatively stable and fairly capacious English market. Australia's agriculture is one of the world leaders in labor productivity, but agricultural output per unit area is relatively small, as land is used extensively.
This feature testifies to how different the agriculture of Australia is from the agriculture of Japan and European countries. However, this feature also testifies to the enormous potential of the fifth continent. Even the most conservative estimates show that only a simple increase in cultivated land at the expense of lands not yet involved in agricultural turnover makes it possible to provide food for 60 million people. And all this without harming the environment.
Australia's agriculture exports 60% of its total output, including 97% wool, 80% sugar, 75% grain, 30-40% beef and mutton. Previously, most of the products were exported to the UK, but recently, Japan and other countries of East and Southeast Asia have become the main exporters. Australia's agricultural development strategy continues to be that sheep is its leading industry. The number of flocks of sheep in the country ranks first in the world and in some years reached 180 million heads. Then it was reduced due to the fall in the global market for wool demand and over the years has been about 130 million heads.
Sheep are quite finicky animals; neither a temperate climate with high humidity nor tropical heat are suitable for them. Most of the sheep (about 45%) graze in areas located west of the zone where intensive sheep breeding is carried out. In these zones, 350 to 500 mm of precipitation falls annually. Here on the farms, in addition to sheep, wheat is also grown and cattle bred. The impact of climate on Australia's agriculture has resulted in intensive sheep breeding zones that are usually highly specialized, with small feedlot farms. These are areas that stretch in a narrow strip along the western slopes of the East Australian Mountains, as well as in the eastern part of Tasmania and in the extreme southwestern part of the mainland. These areas account for about a third of the total flock of sheep.
Among crop production, Australia's agriculture is represented by grain farming. The main grain crop here is wheat. It accounts for 35-40% of the crop production and 18-19% of the total agricultural production. The average yield of wheat is small and is only 13-14 centners per hectare. Moreover, the climate has a rather strong influence on productivity. However, Australia has been a leader in world wheat exports for many years, second only to the United States and Canada. Sometimes in the struggle for third place in the world grain market, France is ahead of it. The largest importers of grain are Japan and China.
In addition to wheat, barley, oats and sorghum are important export crops. Moreover, barley in Australia is grown on the same areas as wheat. The crop rotation scheme is used here: wheat-barley-steam. Corn in Australia, in contrast to European countries and the United States, is not grown much, since local soils and climatic conditions are not suitable for it.