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Department of Agriculture

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  4. Agricultural productivity

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        • About this report
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      • Forest economics
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          • A framework for developing medium term projections of traded wood products
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      • Australian agricultural workforce: Stocktake of data sources
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      • Catchment scale land use of Australia - Commodities - Update December 2020
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    • Agricultural productivity
      • Agricultural productivity estimates
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        • Seasonal workers and working holiday makers comparison report
      • Productivity introduction
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        • Labour force survey
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    • Farm surveys and analysis
      • Farm performance
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      • Disaggregating farm performance statistics by size
      • Previous research
    • Trade
      • Australian wine in China: Impact of China’s anti-dumping duties
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      • Impacts of COVID-19 on Australian agriculture, forestry and fisheries trade
      • Non tariff measures affecting Australian agriculture
      • Overview of recent ABARES China research
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      • South America: an emerging competitor for Australia's beef industry
      • South American wine industry
      • The future of Chinese agricultural policy
      • Understanding how China's tariff on Australian barley exports will affect the agricultural sector
    • Water
      • A model of water trade and irrigation activity in the southern Murray-Darling Basin
      • Future scenarios for the southern Murray-Darling Basin: Report to the Independent Assessment of Social and Economic Conditions in the Basin
      • Measuring water market prices
      • Murray-Darling Basin water markets: trends and drivers 2002-03 to 2018-19
      • Murray-Darling-Basin water market dataset
      • Trends in water entitlement holdings and trade: Analysis of ABARES survey data
      • Water Market Outlook – August 2021
    • Agricultural forecasting
      • Changes to reporting of marketing year data
      • Farm share and price spread
      • Farmers' terms of trade: Update to farm costs and prices paid
      • Forecasting national grain stocks in times of drought
      • Seasonal climate scenarios for medium-term forecasts
      • Summary of ABARES agricultural forecasting
      • The future of public sector forecasting in Australian agriculture
    • Working papers
      • Discount rates and risk in economic analysis
      • A micro-simulation model of irrigation farms in the southern Murray-Darling Basin
      • A model of spatial and inter-temporal water trade in the southern Murray-Darling Basin
      • Defining drought from the perspective of Australian farmers
      • Introducing ABARES farmpredict
      • Non-tariff measures: A methodology
      • Simulating the effects of climate change on the profitability of Australian farms

Agricultural productivity

​​​​Productivity measures the quantity of output produced with a given quantity of inputs. Long term productivity growth reflects improvements in farmers’ production efficiency and technological progress. Improving productivity on farms contributes to profitability and competitiveness because it allows farmers to produce more output using fewer inputs.

A key focus of ABARES research is measuring Australian agricultural productivity and understanding the factors that influence its growth, such as innovation, seasonal conditions and policy changes.

  • Introduction
  • Productivity estimates
  • Productivity drivers
  • International comparisons
  • Measuring productivity
  • Productivity data
  • Productivity publications
  • Related research

Recent releases

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ABARES Farm Data Portal Beta

1 March 2022

The Farm Data Portal is an interactive tool containing data from ABARES surveys of broadacre and dairy farms, and derivate outputs from those surveys, all in the one location.

You can use to tool to see historical results from those surveys, forecasts of farm financial performance, modelled results from the ABARES farmpredict model, and agricultural productivity estimates.

 

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Australian Agricultural Productivity, 2020–21 data dashboard

1 March 2022

See the latest ABARES productivity estimates for the broadacre and dairy industries in an interactive data dashboard.

 

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Controlling for the effects of climate on total factor productivity: A case study of Australian farms

28 June 2021

Estimates of agricultural productivity growth are very sensitive to climate variability. This journal article in Food Policy outlines the methodology to construct climate adjusted productivity estimates for Australian broadacre agriculture.

 

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Disaggregating farm performance statistics by size, 2019–20 data dashboard

2 March 2021

Farm business size is an important indicator of performance. This report provides farm financial performance statistics by different size categories for the broadacre, dairy and vegetable industries. This release includes the latest data through to 2019–20, and presents the results in a new interactive data dashboard.

 

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Using hedonic modelling to analyse farmland price movements

13 December 2019

The Measuring Australian broadacre farmland value: Phase 1 - Statistical infrastructure report contains preliminary findings on the construction of hedonic models to estimate values of Australian farmland.

 

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ICT use in Australian agriculture: A survey of broadacre, dairy and vegetable farms

1 November 2018

New information and communications technology (ICT) could deliver the next wave of productivity growth in Australian agriculture. This report explores the role of ICT and potential barriers to its use on farms. Results from ABARES survey, of over 2200 farmers in 2016–17, are presented for broadacre, dairy and vegetable farms.

 

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Exploring the relationship between farm size and productivity: Evidence from the Australian grains industry, Food Policy Journal

29 March 2018

Farm size has a positive relationship with productivity (i.e. larger farms tend to have higher productivity) and capital hire may make new and advanced technologies more accessible for small farms and bring their productivity closer to that of large farms.

 

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What difference does labour choice make to farm productivity and profitability in the Australian horticulture industry? A comparison between seasonal workers and working holiday makers

February 2018

On average seasonal workers are 20 per cent more productive than backpackers, but their non-wage labour costs are 2.3 times higher. Productivity benefits of hiring seasonal workers likely outweigh the higher non-wage labour costs and deliver profitability gains for farmers, as non-wage costs are generally relatively small.

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Last updated: 10 May 2022

© Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.