Originally Posted by
CPMaverick
Depends on your definition of 'food.' The recent reports of Australia being a net food importer are extremely misleading, and you cannot apply that to 'Agriculture' because Australia is by far a net exporter of agricultural goods.
The report that was issued and widely publicized only considered grocery products. Australia is a net importer of grocery products but exports a huge amount of unprocessed food product (wheat, sugar, etc) that was not included in those numbers.
And that's always been Australia's problem. We sell you the wool and buy back jumpers, we sell you the iron and buy back steel, we sell you the ingredients and buy back the food. It's no wonder we usually have such an abysmal terms of trade.