Thread: Farmer's Median Age now 53

Originally Posted by akelly

... It's a great shame, it's quite an attractive career for many young people I think - just look at the various Ag Colleges, they seem to be chockers with students.

Cheers,
Adam

It does however seem that many graduates of these Ag colleges do end up managing farms owned by agribusinesses they are just not classified as farmers. Our next door neighbour has one of these graduates, great worker quickly went from labourer/milk hand to leading hand including managing the herd agisted on our property. After a stint of a couple of years working for another farmer up at Tamworth, Aiden now manages our neighbour's several thousand Ha dry run property out at Cowra.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Median or mean?

Median is merely the middle number, so if the median age of farmers is 53 and youngest farmer in the population is 18, then the oldest farmer is 89 years old.
.....

Diana

Sorry, you are wrong. If the median age is 53, then the same number of farmers are older as are younger - almost half of them could be 54, and almost half 18, the median would still be 53. Your calculation would only apply if the distribution is normal, which it almost certainly is not (and for normal distribution the median, mode and mean will be the same).

However, I do know of some farmers over 89, and some under 18!

As suggested, there could also be some question about exactly how a farmer is defined - I don't know what definition was used, but a reasonable one would someone who derives a majority of their income from primary production. But regardless of what definition you use, it won't satisfy everyone - on the other hand it probably won't change the statistics very much either.

There are a number of problems that work together to give this result, but they all boil down to the fact that changes in society over the last fifty years or more have made farming a less attractive occupation. Some of the changes include better and cheaper living conditions in the cities compared to on-farm, ever increasing red tape, squeezing of farmers between lower produce prices and higher input costs, forcing more capital intensive operations, active discrimination against farming, for example by native vegetation restrictions, dismantling of primary production infrastructure such as rural railways, agricultural technical support by governments and grower controlled selling organisations. Another factor is the conflict that arises with spouses now expecting a career of their own - not many of these are compatible with farming.

John

I assume from reading the article I linked from the ABS that the definition of farmer is self-determined. People report being a farmer on the census form. There is a vague definition in that article.

All good points John. It's not a very attractive proposition when you weigh up the options in your late teens-early twenties. One of my mates from back then sold the family farm and invested in heavy construction equipment - turned a family business around from almost broke to very profitable.

Cheers,

Adam

Originally Posted by 460cixy

It's a sad old show and the more crap we buy from os is just going to make it worse

Exactly, i get really angry when i see imported food that we grow here.
I went up to the s/m to get some grapes from a large W chain store, all they had was US grapes so i returned home with aussie mangoes and watermelon instead.

Originally Posted by loanrangie

Exactly, i get really angry when i see imported food that we grow here.
I went up to the s/m to get some grapes from a large W chain store, all they had was US grapes so i returned home with aussie mangoes and watermelon instead.

It helps to learn what is in season when! Grapes are just starting to become available, will be gone by March if not earlier. Some fruit, such as apples, can be stored in a controlled atmosphere for long periods, and so are available all year round, and some tropical fruit in particular, such as bananas, have a very wide growing season.

The US grapes are there because people are prepared to pay high prices just to get their favourite food out of season - the US season,, being in the northern hemisphere, is the six months shifted compared to here.

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

It helps to learn what is in season when! Grapes are just starting to become available, will be gone by March if not earlier. Some fruit, such as apples, can be stored in a controlled atmosphere for long periods, and so are available all year round, and some tropical fruit in particular, such as bananas, have a very wide growing season.

The US grapes are there because people are prepared to pay high prices just to get their favourite food out of season - the US season,, being in the northern hemisphere, is the six months shifted compared to here.

John

Vast improvements in transport and handling methods make this possible just as refrigeration made export of meat from Australia possible. US grapes and oranges in my local supermarket are not overpriced. The great improvements in transport within Australia since around 1950 have changed the way many businesses operate. Many manufacturers were able to close state plants and operate with one national plant as it became cheaper to ship finished goods rather than have a number of plants doing the same things. Likewise processing of primary produce. Lockyer Valley beetroot are to be roaded to Cowra for processing. Of five or six large canneries operating in Brisbane once, there is now only Golden Circle which has been severely reduced in size and scope.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

It helps to learn what is in season when! Grapes are just starting to become available, will be gone by March if not earlier. Some fruit, such as apples, can be stored in a controlled atmosphere for long periods, and so are available all year round, and some tropical fruit in particular, such as bananas, have a very wide growing season.

The US grapes are there because people are prepared to pay high prices just to get their favourite food out of season - the US season,, being in the northern hemisphere, is the six months shifted compared to here.

John

As a chef of 28 years i understand this too well , this is a big country and there is very little we cant grow here in the right part of the country.

The future of Agriculture in Australia is a complex and emotional topic. I suspect that the "farmers" alluded to in the article are the lucky ones who have a well managed and sustainable business on a holding sufficiently productive to allow them to have a reasonable lifestyle. I reckon these blokes are in the minority and maybe always have been.
Large scale agriculture with significant foreign investment has always been a feature of the Australian rural landscape with entities such as AACo, Twynam and AIA owning large tracts of land and managing them as businesses. Would a jackaroo or manager on these properties necessarily identify as a "farmer" for the census?

In the 1950s the high wool prices and soldier settlement schemes resulted in a large number of smaller properties being developed with varying degrees of success and a lot of these properties lasted into the 70s and 80s with their original owners living on an ever dwindling income but able to do so because their material needs were few and they were making a sufficient income to cover their needs. Their children, however in a lot of cases were faced with a situation where they either had to leave the farm and forge a career elsewhere or find sufficient equity to borrow to buy country for themselves. In the 1980s as interest rates rose those borrowings became unsustainable and more people were forced off the land never to return.

Another contributor to the demise of the family farm is urbanisation and the growth of hobby farms in a 50 km radius around every major town in rural NSW. A lot of the country around where I grew up in Blayney/Newbridge and Molong areas is now forever lost to productive agriculture as it is all broken up into lots of 100 acres or less with a few alpacas / sheep/ cattle on it that will never produce an income. Who can blame a farmer for subdividing a 600 acre farm into 6 lots that may bring in a couple of million dollars when his income from that land may be less than $60000 a year?

It's hard to explain the emotional side of the farming lifestyle and the effect that losing it has. I suspect that I am still driven by the sense of loss of identity that I experienced when my oldies retired and sold the farm. I'm not alone as most of my mates have found themselves in the same situation and now that they are financially more secure they are starting to trickle back to the land.
We have bought 300 acres to develop with the aim of producing an income and providing our kids with the same upbringing that I had because I believe that country kids have a very different outlook on life to those brought up in town. The big contrast with my childhood is that the farm will never be a major contributor to the family income, we are in a comfortable home in town and it has taken me nearly 20 years after my parents sold their farm to get to the point where we can afford to purchase some land. I'm not that far of that median age either........


Regards,
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