Australia’s enthusiasm for increasing agricultural production to meet growing global demand, especially from Asia, needs to be tempered with the realization that massive investments in infrastructure and improving the efficiency in the country’s existing systems needs to be in place first. Australia’s road and rail networks are mainly concentrated in the east, southeast, southern, and southwest regions of the country and if the hoped-for expansion of agriculture production across northern Australia is going to happen, the necessary transport, storage, processing, and marketing structures will need to be in place before production accelerates. Australia will have to invest A$600 billion into agriculture by 2050 if it is to seize the opportunity to meet global food demand according to analysis by ANZ. And much of those funds will need to be earmarked for investment in infrastructure instead of production as has been the case in the mining sector.
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