Hasbeen, why do you think that is? Is it a result of the Coles/Woolies duopoly keeping the prices down? Or is it simply a reflection that the average consumer's cost of living is so high they can't pay the prices that would make it viable for farmers? Are there viable local distribution networks, or have these been subsumed into the push towards "super" markets. What do you think we could be doing to address the issues that you raised?

I am 65 years old,as an 11 year old worked in market gardens, we had plenty.
We still have a few ,off to a market day today and produce from some are on sale.
Pitt Street farmers,the well off hobby farmers will push products grown on land once farmed.
Now too expensive to do that with.
They and the mac mansions being built on our best farming lands killed farming around here.
But Hasbeen that is a problem, your idea let them sell, make a quick shilling and take it easy.
What of the long term future.
Hobby farmers come and go, strange beasts in paddocks that once had cows waiting to be milked.
Funny hats and people.
Then a sale happens and the long haired goats become Lamas and new people with new dreams waiting to be broken move in ,for a while.
Any answer to world population must include what land is productive.
My market day this morning will see well dressed hobby farmers offer me olive oil at 3 times the price their product, yes very same from their farms costs at the big shops.

“Apart from industrial style farming, it is just not worth doing. Even Asian immigrants, who have always dreamed of their own small crop farm, find the the dream turns very sour in Oz. The old market garden type operation is no longer viable.”

What’s gone wrong? Saoirse covered the questions.

“…In what I consider "useful" agriculture we have just one old dairy farmer, who is too set in his ways to stop. All the other food producers have given up, sick of subsidising the public's food.”

So this Oz Land size of 7,682,300 km2 with 6.15% arable land and only 3,047 km2 permanent crop is probably correct? Why is there not more even in industrial style farming?

jewely,
Don't know if you have had a chance to travel west since you arrived here, but you should do so and you will get some idea of the vast ammount of non arable land. But you also may need to get a map showing the rainfall in various areas and overlay that onto the arable land map.

A few years ago i drove to WA for a wedding and was amazed just how far west the SA farmers had wheat crops and how far east the WA farmers grew wheat. I asked about this and was told they direct sow it without plowing and get a viable crop once each 9 years. Now that is a big gamble, and most people say farmers are conservities.

Point is there are vast ammounts of land where rainfall is most unreliable for agriculture. Compare that to the rainfall in NZ or Europe and you will see the difference. You could also compare stocking rates to that of NZ and Europe, to understand how unproductive much of our land is.

Sorry i do not have the figures at hand.

As a retired grazier, i nearly cry tears of blood when I see all that good productive land, on the East, being covered with houses and bitumen/concrete. We are taking lots of our most productive land out of production, forever. Not very smart is it?

From the central coast of NSW to the north coast two industry's went hand in hand with settlement.
Diary farming and timber getting, the much sought after Ceder the driver.
Diary was not the huge thing it became, in the hills around here you can find still the remnants of single family dairy's in the roughest but greenest country.
One memorable one, not alone produced only cream, and only part of one tin, it was carried out on a youths back.
100,S lived that way.
Australia's meat exports started here.
Cracker cows and black baldys after, both a product or by product of the dairy industry started the American hamburger trade.
Those farms are now largely hobby farms or much bigger beef producers.
Homes built for retiring business couples too sit on that, our best land.
It is a dream, to think population growth can be anything other than harmful if it is to be as big as politicians,all of them want.
A farmer understands much some never will.
Population control is every day on the farm, breeding on good farms comes from the best, from years of planning a line you want to develop a better beast.
Over populating a paddock can kill it for years.
I still shudder at the sight of small farmers at local sales buying ,for breeding, the worse and roughest cows of mixed and confused parentage to cross with bulls even more remote from good stock.
Maybe this world can, one day take a globule view of population.
IF we could only get religion out of the way.
We could plan as one people, take control of birth rates and population growth even refugees, in the best interests of the planet.

im still reluctant to contribute to a 'think'..tank
that has its mind made up

there is a ton of perfectly good land norther eastern australia
trouble being mono-cropping hates mountains...loves govt subsidy to build railways etc

but less than an hour south of brisbane
lies enough ex dairy land to grow all the food we could ever need

its mostly fast returning to the forrest it was pre dairy

its strange..to many but even in india
there are areas people havnt been..let alone tried to grow food

im angry that people have this delusion there are too many of us
any fool can see hundreds of virtually unused land..even in great briton..at best growing shep or as sporting fiefdoms

lest we forget the eu gives HUGE subsidies
for its farmers to NOT grow food

then we got the vast untapped oceans..seas

i have seen the future
where cattle and dairy is done in highrise buildings
fed on sprouted grains...[eating the whole sprouted limp
roots and all

and then growing hydroponic suplies in the middle of huge former..office space's in huge cities

and still we got know nothings saying no
no land...multicropping is the answer

mono cropping is our only
real...and ever present danger
and them big wigs in the genocide em all think tanks

small minded bigots
with even smaler visions
just like the religious zealot

thats our only real problem
the only real danger..

[small thinking..
thinking big is best]

the sooner their sick ideas..and perverted thinking ends
the better for the rest of the world...a pox on all their houses

the poor have allways been hungry
but the rich have allways been sick

voicing their fear
dont make their fears any more real

on our standard quater acre enough food can grow
to feed a family of ten..[even got town water allrady laid on]

harvest the rain
and the think tank is out of business

gone
good riddance