The country has a great climatic variety, ranging from the tropical climate in the northern regions to the temperate continental climate of the southeastern regions and Tasmania and it has an extensive unpopulated area.
The population is dispersed over an immense territory, but most of its inhabitants are concentrated in New South Wales. The second most populous area is Queensland.
The two largest metropolitan areas of the country, that of Sydney and that of Melbourne (in Victoria), bring together almost half of the country's population.
Agriculture, livestock and fisheries are very important sectors for the Australian economy and still employ Australians and foreigners alike.
Australia produces mainly: wheat, oats, corn, barley, rice, vegetables, fruit, cotton, sugar and tobacco. Australia is also a major producer and exporter of meat and wool. Most of the agricultural and livestock production is marketed by former state monopolies, now privatized such as, for example, the Meat and Livestock Australia.
The dairy industry which deals with the production and marketing of dairy products, is still public.
The agricultural sector exports half of its production and together with the other sectors of the primary sector: farming, fishing, mining and forestry, produce more than half of the value of total exports of goods and services coming from Australia.
The fishing sector, still developing, despite its enormous potential, exports fish and crustaceans particularly to the main Asian markets: Japan, China and the United States.
The Australian market is conditioned by the enormous distances that exist in the country so distribution centers are concentrated in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to the east and Perth to the west. Logistical problems and transport costs must be carefully evaluated when moving goods and pricing them.
Australia is also a major producer and exporter of wines as I had mentioned in the Hunter Valley blog and the annual global wine production places the country at number seven among the wine producers worldwide. The Australian wine market is in a phase of strong growth even if it is now close to saturation but in which there are still spaces and opportunities for new products of a certain quality.
Only about half of the production is consumed on the domestic market while the remaining is exported all over the world.
Australia is a country of great opportunities with particularly favorable characteristics: high economic growth, medium-high incomes, business friendly institutional and regulatory context, high productivity, cultural openness towards imported products, low customs tariffs, political context and economically stability.
The farms and the agricultural businesses strongly rely on immigrants from Asia and temporary working holiday visa holders, mainly from Europe, to harvest and manage the fields as Australian workers would be too expensive and they would be hard to find (most Australians prefer living on or close to the coastal areas).
I have personally met many working holiday visa holders from Italy myself and they themselves rely on farms and cattle stations to renew their visas. It is in fact possible to obtain an additional year to stay Down under for those who spend at least 3 or 4 months working on a farm.
Working in agriculture is no longer as popular as it used to be in the past and all the Aussies I have met have admitted preferring working in service fields and be closer to city life.
It is also true that the scorching sun in OZ is not favorable and working outdoors, though rewarding, can be really tough here.
