Farming in Australia
Farming or agriculture in Australia is very important. Australian farms produce a large amount of primary products for export and domestic consumption. The top ten biggest are, beef, wheat, milk, fruit, vegetables, wool, barley, poultry, lamb and sugar cane.
Australia is a very dry country so irrigation is very important and some of the longest irrigation pipes and systems in the world are needed to give water to the crops and animals. 23 % of all fresh water in Australia is used for farms.
Almost all of the fruit and vegetables eaten in Australia is home grown. The largest crops include oranges, apples, bananas, chestnuts, potatoes, carrots and tomatoes. Tropical fruits, including bananas, mangoes and pineapples, fare well in the Northern wet areas. Fruit and vegetables in Australia are rarely imported and exported. Because of this Australia has the strictest customs and border control for these foods in the world.
Beef is the biggest farming industry in Australia. Each year 8.5 million cows are killed to produce beef. 60% of this is exported with the USA and Japan being the biggest customers. The Australian Beef industry was greatly benefited by the mad cow disease as Australia was unaffected, where as many other countries were. Many other livestock are killed each year in Australia, 32 million sheep, 5.5 million pigs and over 400 million chickens and other birds are killed to fill the plates and BBQs of many hungry Australians. Not all the cows are killed though as dairy farming is the 4th most important industry in Australia. Milk, cheese, ice cream, yogurt, custard, and chocolate are very important foods for Australians. A lot are these, especially cheese is exported.
Farming in Australia has always faced many natural problems of droughts, floods and bushfires. The future is looking worse because global warming is predicted to make the dry climate of Australia even drier.Already in the last few years the strange weather has destroyed many farms and crops. As a result a lot of food as become very expensive and a lot of farmers have become bankrupt.
Questions: 1. What is agriculture?____________________________________________.
2. What is irrigation?____________________________________________.
3. Where are most Fruit and Vegetables from Australian's farms eaten?____________________________________________
4. Why was the Australian Beef industry lucky?__________________________________________
5. What do Australians love to eat/drink?______________________________________________
6. What will happen for Australian farms in the future?_____________________________________________________
answers can be something like this:
ReplyDelete1. Agriculture is using the land to produce food for humans. A more educational word for farming.
2. Irrigation is the process of getting water from a water source to the farms.
3. Most fruit and vege are eaten in Australia.
4. Australia was not effected by the mad cow disease so our meat has become very popular around the world.
5. eat meat BBQs and drink milk and other dairy products.
6. unpredictable weather may destoy a lot of farms and water will be harder to come by.