GOLDEN SOIL

From the pandemic to trade wars, the agriculture industry has stared down some devastating obstacles to cement itself as one of the indomitable pillars behind Australia's economic edge. Don't call it luck.

- Karren Vergara reports.

In the book The Lucky Country, the late author Donald Horne provides a piercing assessment of Australia in 1964, stating that its prosperity is derived from good fortune rather than industriousness or ambition.

He ruminated about the future challenges Australia would face economically if it didn't stop relying on its luck. Horne correctly foreshadowed that the most worrying thing about Australia's trade and "the future of world trade in foodstuffs are largely political matters."

These are matters of international commodity agreement, unpredictable decisions by controlled economies and political decisions, along with the "flukes of world politics."

"The best Australia can do is to hope that the bottom does not drop out of all the foodstuff markets at once and to encourage shifts in food production where they are possible," he wrote.

Sixty-one years later, the bottom has not dropped out of the "foodstuff" markets and Australia remains as prosperous as ever, particularly as it weathers the motherload of political matters: US President Donald Trump's tariffs and trade war.

"Generally, the Australian ag community sees the tariffs as a positive in the long term because we're seen as a stable, reliable partner and we will continue to have very stable, reliable production," Warakirri chief executive Jim McKay says.

"We are seeing a realignment of where Australia's trade is going, and agriculture is an important part of that."

Australia's crop production and livestock notably are poised to benefit substantially from that. The nation is a net exporter of food, shipping off about 71% of its agricultural production, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES).

What makes agriculture investors so optimistic is the insatiable demand for the produce, particularly from Australia's largest trading partner - China.