The natural, technological, economic, political and social environment in which farmers farm constantly changes. History has lessons about change in agriculture and about farmers coping with change, though the future is unknowable and thus always surprising. The implication for farm operation is...

In this paper it is argued that solving problems in farm management involves applying an appropriate balance of disciplinary knowledge. More specifically, farm management decision-making is about making choices, and the discipline of choice is economics. Thus economics is the core discipline of...

Farm systems in Australia are open systems. The financial openness of farm systems has implications for managing farms and, thus, implications for analysing farm management decisions and farm performance. In elaborating on this theme, capital investment in agriculture is considered and key ideas...

The decision to invest in pasture improvement raises various questions for the livestock grazier, with the most pertinent being about the potential returns and risks. In the high rainfall zone of south-west Victoria, researchers have trialled novel perennial pasture systems with the aim of...

Australian woolgrowers have not adopted price risk management in the last decade. This is despite a concerted effort at various times by participants in the wool industry to encourage growers to use hedging/forward selling. The explanation for the reluctance of woolgrowers to use futures market...

Models of technical parts of farm systems have proliferated over the past decade. In this paper, the difference between the decision-information deriving from the farm management economic analysis that is included in a technical systems model, and the results derived from analysing the technical...

New perennial pasture grazing systems have been developed for livestock production in the high rainfall zone of southern Australia. These systems provide producers in south west Victoria with the opportunity to increase stocking rate per hectare compared to current practice. A partial discounted...

Recent analysis from surveys of dairy farms has shown that despite large increases in production, the productivity gains on these farms have been modest. Productivity gains are important for farm viability, farmers have made production gains through adoption of technologies and increases in...

This paper deals with the economic analysis and management implications of extending lactations in specialised dairy cows. The main conclusion from this study is that in the two dairy farm cases that have been investigated in depth, the use of extended lactations to achieve efficient herd...

Average total factor productivity measures for the dairy industry provide an insight into how the industry is performing as a whole, but reveal little about what may be happening on individual farms. A case study of an irrigated dairy farm in northern Victoria, over a 37-year period, found that...