Agriculture in Central West NSW: Rural landholder social benchmarking report 2022

The project, Surveying On-Farm Practices, was initiated in 2019 to implement surveys in partnership with local farming organisations across multiple Australian states, to provide accurate information to support improved soil and land management. It is collating a dataset of national significance, showing both breadth and depth of information on factors involved in on-farm decision-making for Australian farmers. The project is led by Dr Hanabeth Luke of Southern Cross University (SCU) and funded by the funded by the Co-operative Research Centre for High-Performance Soils (Soil CRC).
The 2021 Central West NSW social benchmarking survey contributes to the national Soil CRC project. The questionnaire was mailed to rural property owners with holdings greater than 10 ha. Priority addresses were identified using spatially referenced landholder contact lists for the Central West region provided by the local governments of Bland, Blayney, Cabonne, Cowra, Forbes, Lachlan, and Parkes. Questionnaires were posted to 2,500 property owners, equating to 1872 possible respondents. A total of 575 surveys were completed, resulting in a 31% response rate.

This report provides an overview of the results from that survey