Changing Variability in Cereal Production in Australia

As part of a review of changing patterns of variability in cereal production around the world, the situation in Australia is examined both by major cereal crops and by State in which they are grown. The Australian results are generally consistent with those found in parts of both the industrial and developing world. There has been a tendency for production and especially yields to become both somewhat more variable as assessed by the dimension-free measure, the coefficient of variation, and more covariate between producing regions. The two post-World War II sub-periods examined are dominated, respectively, by tall (traditional) and short (modern) cultivars suggesting that there may be a causal link between cultivar used and relative yield variability.