Australian agriculture today is one of the least distorted and the most efficient in the world. The remarkable performance of Australian agriculture offers tremendous insight for other countries to consider. However, what has made Australian agriculture successful? This is the central question asked, analysed and answered in this book. The book is organised into three parts containing ten chapters.
Part I of the book contains Chapters 1-2 and presents the history and success of Australian agriculture. In a short history of a little over 220 years, Australian farmers have advanced Australian agriculture from non-existence to one of the most advanced and efficient in today's world in terms of minimal agricultural support, truly free agricultural market, very competitive in the international market, quality agricultural products, and sustainable agricultural environment.
Part II is the core of the book. The author devotes seven Chapters 3-9 to analyse and answer the question what has made Australian agriculture successful. The book first highlights the institutional framework and demonstrates how the institutional arrangements have affected/contributed to Australia's agricultural development. One important feature is that the Australian Constitution gives substantial powers to the states in making laws, policies and programmes for agriculture. This allows the states to tailor their institutions and policies to suit their substantially differing endowments and comparative advantage. Another significant feature is transparent policy process. One approach to ensure that policy process is transparent, inclusive and consultative is the “public enquiry process” undertaken by the Productivity Commission. The Productivity Commission is a highly independent body of experts that can conduct public inquires on any major policy question referred to it. The Productivity Commission inquiries are open, independent, transparent and time-bound, and invite views from all constituents of society. The Commission has been used for objective evaluations on numerous major policy questions of national importance, including agricultural policies. The government is free to accept or reject the recommendations of the Commission, but the independent public inquiries become of immense value as open objective evaluations and eventually result in changes in the right direction. Some of the other important institutions highlighted are land rights, responsible government, and strong agricultural services, both public and private.
Protecting farmers' interests are important for agricultural development. The book highlights how farmers' interests are protected in Australia, which includes rural politics, farmers' own organisations and overall conducive institutional arrangements and government policies. Australian farmers choose through elections who represents them politically in governments. One major feature is the apolitical organisation of the farmers. Australian farmers have voluntarily formed a huge number of associations, cooperatives, councils and federations for different commodities, critical resources, geographic areas, industries and other interests from the grass-roots upwards to the National Farmers' Federation to defend their interests. These organisations play a major role in organising solutions and responses to various critical problems, and in empowering contact and representation upwards to the government. Most of them are marked by dedicated and willing leadership, which is independent and apolitical, and are entrepreneurial and flexible on adapting to setting and change. They serve as great models in providing effective organisation, group solutions and representation.
The substantial deregulation of agriculture by the Australian Government has been one of the most important aspects in Australian agricultural development. The book shows that Australian agriculture was heavily regulated until the 1980s and the regulations had become complicated, cumbersome, and their effects increasingly obscure. In a series of deregulations starting in the 1980s, various price and production controls were removed, boards dismantled, and quotas and buffer-stocks abolished. The exposure to market forces had substantial implications for formers, but the government largely focused on helping farmers to adjust rather than give up the deregulation process. Various rural reconstruction schemes, and specific adjustment programmes, were offered or taken up to assist and allow farmers to adjust and become more resilient. As a result of continued efforts to deregulate over four decades, today there is little government intervention or regulation in the production and marketing of agricultural products both domestically and internationally, making Australian agriculture one of the least intervened, subsidised and protected, and also one of the most efficient and competitive in the world.
With the removal of regulations, subsidies and controls, Australian agriculture is truly operating in a free market, which requires Australian farmers to be entrepreneurial and innovative. The book highlights the enormous importance of the government efforts to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation in farmers: to transform farmers from producers to business operators, including the promotion of cultural change, provision of information, attracting investments to assist them, and rewarding entrepreneurial behaviours, all of these have been very important and achieved great results.
Agricultural R&D is another important factor that has contributed to Australia's agricultural success. However, one of the major long-term issues is market failure in R&D resulting in declining R&D investment. The book shows that a unique solution that evolved in Australia is the creation of rural R&D corporations covering almost all of the agricultural industries. These are formed and supported through producer levies, industry contributions, and matching grants from the government. The rural R&D corporations have independent boards, regular processes of planning and reporting. Collaboration is encouraged between the corporations and other R&D players. This structure results in promotion and support of relevant research, thereby preventing market failure and underinvestment in R&D. Agricultural extension is crucial to the ultimate adoption of R&D outcomes. The book presents several agricultural extension practices in Australia, including the extension services provided by diverse providers at various kinds of shows, by ABC's rural radio programmes and ABC's Landline TV programmes.
Sustainable farming is important for agricultural development. This requires the farming community not only to make use of the natural environment in which they operate but also to protect it. The book presents recent efforts to foster sustainable farming, and create an environmentally conscious public and farming community. In Australia, efforts to promote, help or practise sustainable farming occur at various levels, including government (federal, state and local), region, industry, community and farm. These efforts in sustainable farming have benefited farmers' production and profitability. However, the book also indicates that there remain issues related to environment protection and sustainable farming that require the attention of the general public, the farming community and the governments, for example, there is a lack of the publics' understanding of farmers' efforts in environment protection, a lack of flexibility and practicality of some environment-related legislations and acts, and a lack of balance between caring for the environment and farmers' livelihoods.
Finally, in Part III the book discusses the emerging challenges facing Australian agriculture including uncertain world markets, volatile weather/climate change, biosecurity threats, the problems of farm succession, labour and skill shortage, and the issues of stronger public demand for environment protection and the urban-rural divide. Australia is well prepared to handle such challenges for future agricultural success.
Overall, this is a very interesting and informative book to systematically examine and analyse the successful development of Australian agriculture. The strength of the book lays in the rich materials and information and the in-depth analysis. Using rich materials and extensive evidence, the book convincingly argues that getting institutions right and creating free market environment are the most important factors for agricultural development, while having an adequate level of agricultural R&D investment and fostering sustainable farming are extremely important for the future. This book not only makes contributions to the existing academic literature in agricultural development but also provides valuable policy implications for both developed and developing countries as they attempt to develop successful free market agriculture sectors, even in a world where protection is still very common. This book is accessible to a broad range of readers, including academics, policy makers, business people, students and non-economists. The book will benefit anyone who is interested in agricultural development in general and in Australian agriculture in particular.
2 September 2013.
