Australian vegetable-growing farms - Physical characteristics web-report

Overview

Since 2007 ABARES has conducted an annual survey of vegetable-growing farm businesses to provide industry and government with information about farm-level production and the financial situation of vegetable growers. This web-report presents an overview of the physical characteristics of the vegetable-growing industry from 2006-07 to 2016-17.

Key Issues
• Queensland and Victoria are the two largest vegetable-growing states, together accounting for 55 per cent of the total value of vegetable production in 2015-16. • From 2006-07 to 2015-16 the total number of Australian vegetable-growing farms fell by 37 per cent largely as result of a decline in the number of small vegetable-growing farms planting less than 20 hectares. Most of the decline was in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. • From 2006-07 to 2015-16 the intensity of vegetable production increased with the proportion of total farm cropping area planted to vegetables trending upwards in all states except Western Australia and Tasmania. • The average area planted to vegetables per farm increased from 2006-07 to 2016-17 mainly due to increased plantings of a range of more intensive vegetable crops such as Asian greens and other specialty vegetables.