Australia Farming

Farming sits at the intersection of the world’s biggest challenges around climate change, soil, water, energy, natural disasters and zoonotic diseases. Yet Australia has no national food policy. No national agriculture strategy. Our water policy is close to the Hunger Games. People with means can shop at farmers’ markets and order brunch, by the provenance of their eggs, bacon, butter, tomatoes and greens. But do they really understand the trade-offs required to grow it?

Author Deb Hunt sets out to discover what makes our Australian farming families tick. Travelling to properties across the country - from a vast, dusty cattle run in outback Queensland to the wheat belt of Western Australia and dairy farms in Tasmania - and introducing us to eight different families who survive and thrive on the land, these stories provide a window into a way of life that defines the Australian spirit at its best.

An award-winning political scientist shows that a society’s path to prosperity, sustainability, and equality depends on who owns the land For millennia, land has been a symbol of wealth and privilege. But the true power of land ownership is even greater than we might think. In Land Power...

What happened when a young man ditched the office and headed to the outback of Australia for the adventure of a lifetime? In 2002, a young Englishman left London behind to try something new on a working holiday. One year; 2,000 sheep: 4,000 km travelled. Horses and quad bikes; two light aircraft; one Ford station wagon. He uncovered real life far from the hustle and bustle of the beaches and coffee shops of the East coast. There were "Skimpies", surly farmers, tough miners, vets and call-girls. How did he go learning to fly, and getting behind the wheel of a ten-tonne truck? A must-read for...

WINNER OF THE STELLA PRIZE The lives of three women weave together across centuries in this dazzling new novel. Sarah, accused of being a witch, is fleeing for her life. Ruth, in the aftermath of World War II, is navigating a new marriage and the strange waters of the local community. ...

The Freemason's Family, a novel of family adventures set in nineteenth-century Australia, is the sequel to Bill Jackman's The Freemason's Daughter. Beatrice has now married Charles, her childhood sweetheart, and at the beginning of the novel they emigrate to Australia on the SS Great Britain. Charles has started a sheep farm in Australia and soon has problems with rustling on the farm. But there is worse to come when the family become involved in the Boer War and its tragedies. Beatrice's son Norman is press-ganged into a Merchant Navy ship and sails the seven seas, experiencing many ...

An impassioned memoir of saving extraordinary plants on the brink of extinction, by a scientist who has been called a "codebreaker" (Telegraph) and "an inspiration" (Jane Goodall) Carlos Magdalena is not your average horticulturist. He's a man on a mission to save the world's most endangered...

A FARMING LIFE shares the uplifting stories of women from six rural families as their resilience is tested by personal loss, illness, fractured relationships, natural disasters and the challenges that come with working in a traditionally male-dominated world. These women are all hands-on farmers - in fact, most are responsible for managing their own farms - and their defiance, tenacity and genuine humility shines through, as does their hope for the next generation of young women already lining up to follow in their footsteps.

From the author of beloved Top Ten bestsellers The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club and The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle comes a delightful new novel about friendship, love and finding yourself. Far North Queensland, 1993: At 74, former cane farmer Grace Maud is feeling...

Billabong Nulla-Nulla Steven is an Australian Aboriginal boy with a dream. A dream as powerful as any mans. A future life was calling but before he could step out and seek or grasp for that opportunity, he needed to meet and know his father and mother and why he had been left behind in Wyndham for so long. Left in his grandmother Gilly's care when just a month old he had no Dreamtime stories about his parents. So, when opportunity knocked, he set out to meet them and discover and endeavor to understand their walk down life's path. Venturing all over the Kimberley he meets many who know his ...

In a triumph of marketing, the Tasmanian salmon industry has for decades succeeded in presenting itself as world's best practice and its product as healthy and clean, grown in environmentally pristine conditions. But what are we eating when we eat Tasmanian salmon? Richard Flanagan's expose of the salmon farming industry in Tasmania is chilling. In the way that Rachel Carson took on the pesticide industry in her groundbreaking book Silent Spring, Flanagan tears open an industry that is as secretive as its practices are destructive and its product disturbing.

Maya Thorne is called to investigate when Dr. Amanda Parker is found dead. What begins as an apparent accident evolves into something far more sinister, revealing connections between drought-resistant crop research and powerful interests operating in the shadows of rural Australia. When evidence emerges that Parker's death was staged using the storm as cover, Maya must navigate both scientific sabotage and the deep-rooted tensions of a community divided by old grievances and new threats. As pressure mounts from university officials and corporate representatives, Maya uncovers links between ...

It’s been nearly a year since Blaise moved to the country in the name of love, and Dusty opened her heart to a city boy. It hasn’t been smooth sailing for either of them. This is their first Christmas together, and it could make or break them. Has he proven his worth as a city boy to be able to survive living on the farm? Does he really need to prove himself, or is Dusty expecting too much? Blaise wants to move to the farm, but Dusty is hesitant. Can she really trust him? The irrational doubt has risen from nowhere, and she’s grappling to work through it. It doesn’t help that the ...

As featured on CNN’s Amanpour & Company and BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week with Andrew Marr One of the Financial Times’ best books of 2021 In this compelling journey through twenty-six countries, Simon Mundy traces how the struggle to respond to the climate crisis is rapidly reshaping the...

Playing out as a scintillating story with unexpected twists, “The Girl on the Trail” explores the severe and overwhelming shock of discovering uncomfortable truths about those we look up to, the security of family, the joy and satisfaction of love, the devastation of betrayal and loss, and the comfort of loyalty in our lives. The teenage Tatiana is certain she has her future mapped out: She would find love when she becomes a young woman, she would live a loving life all through college, and she would marry the knight who would secure her heart. But then, her compromised mother shakes ...

Genre: Memoir. Joyce Born April 1926 Joyce's childhood was during an era when sugar cane was cut by hand, not everyone had electricity or running water, recycling was more a necessity than a lifestyle and people dressed up when calling on their neighbours. This is a collection of stories told to her granddaughter when she was a child, fascinated by a world so different from her own. This story was written by an Australian author using Australian spelling.

An immigrant's tale of an untamed country Alexander Gibson, my father, was a young Englishman who with his brother settled in Australia in the 1920s. The brothers each married one of the Solomon sisters just prior to the Great Depression. The Taciturn Man begins just after the Second World War when Alexander took up a rough bush sheep-grazing block in isolation among the tall trees of New England (New South Wales). I was born in 1937, and so I was just three years old when my father went to war, and age eight when he returned. Fortunately, by then I was old enough to absorb much of the ...

In the summer of 1976 it's picking season on an Australian stone-fruit orchard run by Celia, a hard-working woman in her early forties. Years ago, when her husband was killed as a bystander in an armed robbery, Celia left the city and brought her newborn daughter Zoe to this farm for a secure...

In an era of rapid climate change, this vital account of how agriculture can address major issues is an Australian story with global ramifications. Patrice is at the frontline of enormous challenges, from water scarcity and land stewardship to food security and the rural-urban divide. The...

FOREVER MORE - Silkworm Secrets Series: Book 2 The days pass for Ruby and Bobby just how they like: slow and peaceful with plenty of time for the two of them. The dark secrets they once shared have faded into the past, and their life in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland is full of activity as they build their new business. A few head of cattle, a couple of horses, and their dog Rusty complete their family. It’s hard to imagine that anyone could want anything more. However, when family connections from long ago surface, Ruby and Bobby face responsibilities they hadn’t anticipated. Bobby is ...