ABSTRACT
Gray and Lawrence (2001), in their book A Future for Regional Australia: Escaping Global Misfortune, maintain that regional Australians are experiencing the effects of global misfortune, which continues to create social, economic, and environmental disadvantage for our rural populations. The three elements that comprise this misfortune are identied as the Australian colonial legacy, the use of inappropriate farming practices in a fragile ecosystem, and the vulnerability of family-based farming systems. To address these problems, concepts relating to farming in Australia are currently evolving to adopt the criteria of the triple bottom line-ideally creating farming systems that are ecologically sustainable, protable, and socially acceptable. Rickert (2004) rightly identies that farmers not only provide food and ber, but also act as stewards of land that provides ecosystem services for the wider community. To remain globally competitive, Australian farmers need to transfer from a yield and paddock focus to a “whole farm” approach embracing key performance indicators across the full range of prot drivers, including water efciency, farm inputs, machinery, labor, and nancing costs.
