ABARES has been conducting surveys of agricultural industries since the 1940s. Farm surveys conducted by ABARES provide a wide range of information on the current and historical economic performance of farm business units in the rural sector. This information is used for research and analysis on a range of industry issues of concern to government and industry.
An overview of results for Australian broadacre and dairy farms is released at the ABARES OUTLOOK Conference each March. This includes analysis of farm costs, receipts, income, profit, rates of return, performance by state and performance by industry (defined by ANZSIC). Farms are classified to ANZSIC-based industries based on the relative contribution of farm outputs to total output. This method allows analysis to focus on relatively homogeneous groups of farms.
Subsequent analyses of farm performance are published for beef, lamb, grain and dairy farms. These industries are classified more broadly than those published at OUTLOOK to provide a more complete picture of trends and variation in performance across farms by type of commodity produced, size and region.