This report forms part of the "Moving to a vegan agricultural system" series which examines how a move to an agricultural system where no animals are used would impact sectors such as the economy, employment, land use, the environment and food security. This part outlines impacts on the Australian economy. It will attempt to answer the following questions.
- How much do current animal industries contribute to the economy, including exports?
- What would be the contribution to the economy of alternative industries?
- How many people are currently employed in animal industries?
- How are these jobs distributed amongst industries, such as farming, sale yards, slaughterhouses and processing, distribution, retail, etc?
- What is the geographical distribution of employment in animal industries?
- What would be the geographical distribution of employment in alternative industries?
- What population movements would a move to alternative industries entail?
- What would be the impact on housing and regional towns by a move to alternative industries?
- As the demand for meat, dairy and eggs reduces, what new jobs would be created in the expanding plant farming sector and in the new vegan food industries?
- What programs can be put in place to help animal farmers transition to plant-based farming?
While this report concentrates on the impacts of a vegan agricultural system, in this section we will assume that animal products are no longer imported into Australia. This is relevant in an economic analysis as Australia is a net importer of some animal products, such as fish and pig meat.
The current economic scale of the animal agriculture industry
This section looks at the current production value, employment figures and exports values for the animal agriculture industry.
Economic value
The economic value of the animal agriculture industry can be measured in a number of ways. We will look at some of these and compare it to other industries and the economy as a whole.
Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) tables for "agricultural commodities produced", we find that in 2013-14, the value for all agriculture was $50.8 billion. Plant products (grains, fruit, nuts and vegetables) were valued at $28.1 billion (55%), while animal products were valued at $22.7 billion (45%).
Another ABS table for "industry value added" gives a value of $27.5 billion for the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector in 2013-14. Estimating 45% of this as being from animal agriculture, gives us about $12.4 billion. This is 1.2% of the total "value added" for all industries of $1.04 trillion. This compares to 12.0% for the mining sector, 10.4% for construction, 9.4% for manufacturing, 6.4% for health care and 2.2% for education and training.
The World Bank gives a figure of 2.4% for the value added percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for all agriculture. This is similar to that given above.
The chart below shows the relative contribution to the Australian GDP for each industry. Agriculture is the narrow red section at the top. Animal agriculture makes up less than half of this. This illustrates that animal agriculture is not nearly as significant to the Australian economy as many people imagine. In fact, the only industry smaller than animal agriculture is arts and recreation!
In summary, the animal agriculture industry contributes about 1.2% to the Australian economy. The below graph shows the industry by animal product (from data in "Australian Pig Annual 2012-2013").Exports
Australia exports around 60 percent of its agricultural production. In 2014-15, total Australian exports were $319 billion. Agricultural exports were $42.5 billion, with about half of that from animal products. Animal products contribute about 7% to total exports. The main animal exports were cow meat ($9 billion), meat from other species ($3.8 billion), wool ($3.1 billion), live cows and sheep ($1.7 billion) and dairy ($2.4 billion).
The following graph shows animal agriculture exports in relation to other sectors. Mining consists of iron ore, other metals, oil, gas, gold, etc. Services include tourism and business and technical services. One such service is education-related travel, earning about $18 billion, slightly less than all forms of animal agriculture.
The graph below from the Reserve Bank of Australia shows the rapid decline in the significance of agriculture as an export industry. It has gone from nearly 50% of exports to about 15% in the last 40 years.
Employment
In this section we will estimate the number of people employed in the animal agriculture industry.
Employment figures are usually reported in the agriculture sector as a whole and includes plant and animal farming, forestry, fishing and support services. There is a lot of variability in the numbers reported, depending on the source. Some of these figures, all from government or industry sources, are 307,000, 313,000, 478,000 and 513,000. These range from 2.7% to 4.8% of total employment (11,482,000 in 2013-14).
