What percent of Australia is used for farming?

Answer 1

around 1,541,337 Australia's area is 769 million hectares, with about one quarter mostly desert and not used commercially. Early settlements tended to be established near reliable water supplies leading to Australia's population being concentrated along the coast, mainly in the comparatively fertile, well-watered east, south-east and far south-west. The establishment of irrigation schemes, largely by government, also played an important role in populating inland Australia. The discovery of the Great Artesian Basin provided reliable water for the pastoral industry in the dry inland grazing country. The most extensive land use in Australia is livestock grazing in arid and semi-arid regions and covers 430 million hectares or 56 percent of Australia. In total, the area of agricultural land is 473 million hectares or nearly 62 percent of the continent. With 120 million sheep, 24 million beef cattle and 3 million dairy cattle in 1996/97, Australian agriculture is predominantly livestock based. Agriculture was worth $28 billion with $11.9 billion from livestock industries, $11.6 billion from cropping, and $4.1 billion from horticulture (Australian Bureau of Statistics 1999). Although agriculture is still an important player in the Australian economy, mining, manufacturing, service and construction now contribute more to the economy than agriculture. Minimal uses occur over nearly 16 percent of the continent. Covering 120.8 million hectares, 76 percent of this area is reserved, vacant or institutional crown land. Minimal use is located predominantly in Western Australia in the arid zone. In Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales, remnant native cover on private land represent significant areas within the minimal use category covering collectively in those States nearly 23 million hectares. Other protected areas including indigenous uses cover 102.6 million hectares (or over 13 percent) of Australia. Most of this area (89 percent) is for traditional indigenous uses. Traditional indigenous uses are located predominantly in the Northern Territory (48.3 million hectares), Western Australia (23.3 million hectares) and South Australia (16.9 million hectares) in the arid zone and to some extent the tropical north. Nearly 50 million hectares or 6.5 percent of Australia has the land use of nature conservation. This includes features such as the salt lakes in South Australia like Lake Eyre. Eighty-five percent of Australia's nature conservation area is gazetted IUCN categories strict nature reserve and national park. Forestry tends to be confined to regions of Australia with higher rainfall and covers nearly 2 percent of the continent. The most intensive use is the built environment, which occupies about 2.4 million hectares, or 0.3 percent of Australia. The built environment encompasses both urban and periurban areas and open-cut mines. Open-cut mines represent a very small proportion of the built environment and would include mines such as the brown coal mines in the La Trobe Valley, Victoria. It is within this built environment that more than 80 percent of Australia's 19 million people reside http://www.anra.gov.au/topics/land/landuse/index.html