Information about agriculture and rural land use in the Perth region.
The Perth NRM Region covers an area of about 4,543 sq kilometres (1.6 million ha).The area of peri-urban and rural local governments is 1.1 million ha.
The Perth NRM region (Source: Australian Government)
The area of agricultural holdings in the Perth region was 478,013 ha in 2011 (ABS). There are 1,511 farm businesses in this area which is 12.1 percent of the Western Australian total.
The area of rural smallholding land use in the region is 123,196 ha which is 19 percent of the WA total. The number of rural small landholders is 19,764 which is 36.5 percent of the WA total (Source: Department of Agriculture and Food WA, 2007).
Land mainly used for crops is about 164,752 ha from 1,073 farm businesses. This is about 34.5 percent of the total area used by agricultural businesses. Land used for grazing is about 227,347 ha from 813 businesses representing 47.6 percent of the agricultural area.
Horticulture (fresh food production) is an important activity in the region and to the State. There are approximately 483 orchardists in the region farming around 5,884 ha representing 25.8 of the total number of growers. In relation to grape growing, there are around 246 businesses growing on around 1,770 ha representing about 30.9 precent of producers by number.
In all, land used for agricultural and rural smallholdings represents between 25-30 percent of total land use.
Links:
[1] http://sustainableagriculture.perthregionnrm.com/resource/link/australian-land-use-map-20052006