The shrinking family farm

The retiring Managing Director of the Grains Research Development Corporation, Peter Reading announced yesterday at the CCRSPI Conference that he expects 60% of his organisation's constituents will leave the industry in the next 10 years. He predicted that 15000 mainly family-owned farms would be absorbed into corporate-owned groups. (Twenty years ago there were 47000 grain growers in Australia. Today there are 25000.) These farmers paid an annual levy for the GRDC which says its primary objective is "to support effective competition by Australian grain growers in global grain markets, through enhanced profitability and sustainability."