ASSESSMENTS

Why Australia Can't Ignore Its Farmers

Oct 11, 2018 | 09:00 GMT

This photo taken on Aug. 7 shows sheep grazing on a dry paddock in the drought-hit area of Duri in New South Wales.

This photo taken on Aug. 7 shows sheep grazing on a dry paddock in the drought-hit area of Duri in New South Wales. Agriculture is critical to Australia's export strategy.

(SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

  • Australia's agricultural sector will continue to be essential to overcoming the limits of its small domestic market.
  • Unlike other developed markets, Australia is likely to maintain low domestic protection for its farming sector while pushing aggressively for greater agricultural access overseas.
  • Agriculture's continued growth and relatively high employment mean that those interests will continue to drive the country's trade policy.

Agriculture has ruled the roost in Australia since the country's inception. Maintaining and expanding international access for its agricultural goods has long been a key plank of the country's trade policy, and its agricultural groups continue to lobby strongly for expansive free trade deals to overcome a small domestic market, to make inroads into countries with more profitable products and to defeat competition from other exporters. And though diversification has resulted in the emergence of others sectors in recent decades, the farming industry's continued growth in value and employment -- as well as its alignment with the country's broader trade policies -- means it will remain a guiding influence regardless of who rules Australia....

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