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Land degradation and the Australian agricultural industry

Industry Commission staff information paper

This paper by Paul Gretton and Umme Salma, was released in June 1996.

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  • Contents

PART 1   REPORT

1   Introduction

2   Agriculture and the management of land
2.1   Introduction
2.2   Farmers’ terms of trade
2.3   Trends in farm sector growth
2.4   Sources of increased demand for agricultural outputs
2.5   Government expenditures on agriculture and agricultural land management
2.6   Expenditures on environmental protection
2.7   Conclusion

3   Sustainability and land degradation
3.1   Introduction
3.2   Environmental-economic framework
3.3   Concepts and definitions
3.4   Land degradation and ecologically sustainable
3.5   Farmer incentives and agricultural land degradation
3.6   A private or a social problem?
3.7   Conclusion

4   Economic effects of land degradation in Australia
4.1   Introduction
4.2   The extent of land degradation in Australia
4.3   Production loss from land degradation and cost-benefit analysis of amelioration works
4.4 An analysis of the state-wide effects of land degradation in New South Wales
4.5   Conclusion

PART 2   APPENDICES

A   Classification of agricultural land degradation in Australia
A.1   Introduction
A.2   Induced changes to non-energy mineralisation
A.3   Induced changes to soil structure and erosion
A.4   Induced changes to biological conditions

B   Classification of agricultural regions in New South Wales
B.1   Introduction
B.2   Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation of Australia
B.3   Statistical Local Area spatial units
Annex B1   Description of IBRA regions covering New South Walesa
Annex B2   Description of land use categories

C   The extent of land degradation in Australia
C.1   Introduction
C.2   Estimates of land degradation provided in general studies
C.3   Estimates of land degradation provided in selected published studies

D   Conceptual model of land degradation, farm output and profits
D.1   Introduction
D.2   Typical pattern in the regeneration of land resources
D.3   The link between agricultural land use and changes in land resources
D.5 Production from the use of land resources
D.6   Production revenue, costs and profits from land use
D.7   Some broader implications of agricultural land use
D.8   Summing up

E   Production equivalent of degradation, and costs and benefits of amelioration
E.1   Introduction
E.2   Static measures of land degradation
E.3   Cost-benefit analysis of land management alternatives
E.4   Summing up

F   Estimates of the effects of land degradation in New South Wales
F.1   Introduction
F.2   Agricultural output and input shares and price indexes
F.3   Model outline
F.4   Responsiveness of agricultural outputs and inputs to relative price changes
F.5   Land degradation, output responsiveness and profitability
F.7   Summing up
Annex F1   Econometric model of agriculture and the effects of land degradation
Annex F2   Sources of data for the integrated econometric modelling data base

References

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