Australia’s role in the Asian Century: the food bowl of a growing region?

This essay examines the potential of Australian agriculture to meet the growing food demand from Asia. In doing so, this paper analyses the drivers of demand from the Asian region, where opportunities are identified for specific agricultural industries. Australia’s current potential is examined, exploring innovation in agricultural productivity as well as assessing climate change’s impact on farm production. Finally, this paper provides several policy recommendations to ensure that Australian agriculture is well placed to take advantage of future opportunities.

This paper finds that improvements to agricultural productivity must be a priority of future policy agendas. Ensuring productivity growth is vital to the industry’s sustained international competitiveness as well as providing a buffer against long-term issues such as climate change. The factors underlying productivity growth must also be addressed including the continuation in world-class levels of agricultural research and development, and developing the next generation of the agricultural labour force.