Academic literature on the topic 'Australian sugar industry'

Abstract This article investigates the history of the Queensland cane sugar industry and its cultural and political relations. It explores the way the sugar industry was transformed from an enterprise drawing on the traditional plantation crop cultivated by an unfree labour force and employing workers into an industry that was an important, symbolical element of ‘White Australia’ that was firmly grounded in the cultural, political, nationalist, and racist reasoning of the day. The demographic and social changes drew their incitement and legitimation from the ‘White Australia’ culture that was represented in all social strata. Australia was geographically remote but culturally close to the mother country and was assigned a special position as a lone outpost of Western culture. This was aggravated by scenarios of allegedly imminent invasions by the surrounding Asian powers, which further urged cane sugar’s transformation from a ‘black’ to a ‘white man’s industry’. As a result, during the sugar strikes of the early 20th century, the white Australian sugar workers were able to emphasize their ‘whiteness’ to press for improvements in wages and working conditions. Despite being a matter of constant discussion, the public acceptance of the ‘white sugar campaign’ was reflected by the high consumption of sugar. Moreover, the industry was lauded for its global uniqueness and its significance to the Australian nation. Eventually, the ‘burden’ of ‘white sugar’ was a monetary, but even more so moral support of an industry that was supposed to provide a solution to population politics, support the national defence, and symbolize the technological advancement and durability of the ‘white race’ in a time of crisis.

The honey bee industry in Australia is small but has a big impact on both producers and consumers. Alarmingly, it has been recently reported that an international laboratory, specializing in honey authentication, found that almost half of the 28 blended and imported honey samples selected from Australian supermarket shelves were “adulterated”. The Official method of honey analysis (AOAC 998.12) is based on the stable-isotope ratio mass spectrometry analysis of δ13C value of honey versus δ13C of honey protein to detect the addition of C4 plant derived sugars, such as cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup. This method is used as the primary C4 sugar adulteration test around the world, but honey derived from some Australian plants, particularly Manuka (Leptospermum species), fails this process. Our research aims to examine the characteristics of Australian honey and develop a test that is fit for purpose, particularly where honeys derived from Leptospermum species are concerned. We have focused on the isotopic values of “proteins” precipitated using the standard AOAC method and “proteins” precipitated after incorporation of a further modification step which removes insoluble material (including pollen) from the honey before precipitation. Our modified method includes the analysis of different isotopes of the precipitated protein, sugar profiles and Manuka markers. A key advantage of the proposed modification is that it does not preclude the detection of residual sugar feeding of bees or extension of honey with C4 sugar. The proposed modification to the AOAC test will reduce false identification of C4 sugars and improve the overall reliability of Australian honey authentication.

Purpose – This study aims to investigate the effects of climate change on harvestability for sugarcane-growing regions situated between mountain ranges and the narrow east Australian coastline. Design/methodology/approach – Daily rainfall simulations from 11 general circulation models (GCMs) were downscaled for seven Australian sugarcane regions (1961:2000). Unharvestable days were calculated from these 11 GCMs and compared to interpolated observed data. The historical downscaled GCM simulations were then compared to simulations under low (B1) and high (A2) emissions scenarios for the period of 2046-2065. The 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles of paired model differences were assessed using 95 per cent bootstrapped confidence intervals. Findings – A decrease in the number of unharvestable days for the Burdekin (winter/spring) and Bundaberg (winter) regions and an increase for the Herbert region (spring) were plausible under the A2 scenario. Spatial plots identified variability within regions. Northern and southern regions were more variable than central regions. Practical implications – Changes to the frequency of unharvestable days may require a range of management adaptations such as modifying the harvest period and upgrading harvesting technologies. Originality/value – The application of a targeted industry rainfall parameter (unharvestable days) obtained from downscaled climate models provided a novel approach to investigate the impacts of climate change. This research forms a baseline for industry discussion and adaptation planning towards an environmentally and economically sustainable future. The methodology outlined can easily be extended to other primary industries impacted by wet weather.

History is replete with debates between health professionals with concerns about practices and products and others who either challenge scientific evidence or believe that the greatest public good is achieved through maintenance of the status quo. This paper provides a 1950s socio-scientific perspective on a recurring problem for health professionals. It analyses dentists' promotion of oral health by discouraging sugar consumption and the sugar industry's defence of its staple product. Despite scientific evidence in support of its case, the dental profession lacked influence with government and large sections of the Australian community. The division of powers within the Australian Constitution, together with the cause, nature and ubiquity of caries and Australians' tolerance of the disease, were relevant to the outcome. In contrast, the sugar industry was a powerful force. Sugar was a pillar of the Australian and Queensland economies. The industry contributed to the history of Queensland and to Queenslanders' collective psyche, and enjoyed access to centralized authority in decision-making. The timing of the debate was also relevant. Under Prime Minister Robert Menzies, the Australian Government was more concerned with promoting industry and initiative than oral health. This was a one-sided contest. Patterns of food consumption evolve from interactions between availability, culture and choice. Food and associated etiquettes provide far more than health, nutrients and enjoyment. They contribute to economic and social development, national and regional identity and the incidence of disease. The growing, milling and processing of sugarcane and the incorporation of sugar into the Australian diet is a case study that illuminates the interface between health professionals, corporations, society and the state. Today, for a variety of reasons, health professionals recommend limits for daily intake of sugar. Calls for dietary reform are not new and invariably arouse opposition. The issue came to the fore between 1945 and 1960, when dentists contended that the consumption of sugar either caused or contributed to a major health problem, namely dental caries (tooth decay). Representatives of the sugar industry defended their staple product against these claims, which emerged at a critical time for the industry. With hindsight, these exchanges can be seen as a precursor to more diverse and recurring debates relating to contemporary health campaigns. This paper documents and analyses the contemporaneous scientific and socio-political backgrounds underpinning these engagements

The Australian sugar industry in the 1890s faced an agricultural crisis, as the standard cane varieties succumbed to the disease gummosis. Australian scientists were engaged by the Queensland Government and the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR) to identify new, gummosis-resistant cane varieties. This paper begins by outlining the organizations and personalities involved in this research. The distribution of the new varieties throughout Australian sugar-producing districts is reconstructed in the second part of the paper. In the final section, the economic benefits of the new varieties are reviewed. The scientists involved not only sought gummosis-resistant cane varieties, but also those that were sucrose-rich. Hence, what began as a potential agricultural catastrophe, benefited the Australian sugar industry in the long-term, since the new varieties yielded more sugar and a damaging disease was defeated, albeit temporarily.

Variation in the composition of eastern Australian molasses was examined. Data on molasses composition for 1997–2001 were collected from all 28 eastern Australian sugar mills. Since the last detailed study in 1975, there have been decreases in the concentration of reducing sugars (–6.2%), sucrose (–0.9%), total sugars (–2.5%), other organic matter (–11%) and calculated metabolisable energy (ME) (–2.8%). Dry matter (DM, +0.1%) and ash (+29%) concentrations have increased. Differences between milling regions were observed for DM (P<0.001), reducing sugars (P<0.05) and sucrose (P<0.01) concentrations. Molasses DM was highest for the Northern milling region and lowest for the Southern milling region. Reducing sugar concentrations were lower whereas sucrose concentrations were higher in molasses from the Southern milling region than the Northern region. The concentration of reducing sugars, total sugars and calculated ME was significantly (P<0.05) lower in mid-season molasses than early and late season molasses. Mid-season molasses ash concentration was highest (P<0.05). Significant (P<0.05) region × year interactions were found for all molasses components. Significant (P<0.05) region × season interactions were found for reducing sugars, sucrose, total sugars, ash and the calculated ME. Significant (P<0.001) nested effects for mills within a region were found for all molasses components. Mill within-region effects (P<0.001) accounted for much (31–62%) of the total variation for all molasses components. Significant (P<0.01) nested effects for season within year were found for all molasses components. Depending on the molasses component, season within year accounted for 3–19% of variation. Calculated ME in molasses was most correlated with total sugars (r = –0.97; P<0.001) and ash concentration (r = –0.73; P<0.001). Commercial cane sugar (percentage sugar in juice) was negatively (r = –0.43; P<0.001) correlated with calculated molasses ME. Generally, the observed variation in the calculated ME of molasses would only be sufficient to reduce average daily gains by up to 0.05 kg/day in cattle fed diets containing 60% molasses. Compared with the calculated molasses ME of molasses in 1975, a similar reduction in animal performance could be expected with current molasses composition. Such variation in ME also has implications for the use of molasses in the dairy industry and for ethanol production.

The most recurrent theme in the early literature on women and farming is of women's invisibility. By the end of the 1990s, however, an important shift had occurred with farm women's increased visibility. Two international conferences had been held on women and agriculture, numerous rural women's groups had been formed across the world and a substantial literature had emerged documenting women's role and work on farms. However, despite the increased prominence given to the private lives of women farmers, they are still largely unrepresented in the public sphere of agriculture. In the Australian cane industry, for example, women hold none of the 181 elected positions of leadership in their agri-political group, CANEGROWERS. This anomaly between what we now know about women's important role in farming and their absence from decision-making positions in the sector, has shifted the focus of academic work on women and agriculture from examining family farming to studies of organisational culture and leadership. This thesis contributes to this shift in academic focus by reporting on an in-depth study of a single agri-political organisation, the Australian sugar industry's, CANEGROWERS. Its significance is that it makes important and critical links between the gendered processes and practices on the farm and the gendered processes and practices of the agri-political group. In both metaphorical and real terms it makes links between the 'paddock' and the 'board room'. This research derives its feminist perspective from a commitment to five key principles. These are focusing on women, valuing women's experiences and knowledge, rejecting the split between subject and object, emphasising consciousness raising and emphasising political change and emancipation. The research design includes both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. A case study of CANEGROWERS using in-depth interviews with fifteen elected members, participant observation and document analysis, provides contextual data on the organisation and its practices and processes. A survey of 234 women involved in the industry gives a quantitative perspective on the nature of women's farm work, the barriers to their participation in CANEGROWERS and possible strategies to facilitate greater participation. Two final case studies of the district locations of Mackay and the Herbert River are used to present a descriptive and localised understanding of the issues. Both case studies use a range of methods including focus groups with forty women, in-depth interviews with CANEGROWERS' staff members and women who have stood for election, participant observation and document analysis. The main finding that emerges from this thesis is that the path to leadership within the agri-political group CANEGROWERS is subjective, closed and distinctly gendered. This is in distinct contrast to the way it is represented by elected members and some CANEGROWERS' staff as a process which is objective, open and gender neutral. This gendered path to leadership begins with how the notion of farmer is constructed solely in terms of the on-farm physical work undertaken largely by men. Thus; importantly, women's work on sugar cane farms, what they do and what they do not do, is intricately connected with their level of participation in the organisation CANEGROWERS. The research provides evidence of the fact that women are actively involved on sugar cane farms performing a myriad of roles which contribute to the industry's sustainability. However, the roles they perform and the knowledge needed to conduct these roles are not valued. What work and knowledge is valued is that relating to on-farm physical labour. Despite the popular and mainstream rhetoric about the need for new types of farming and new types of farmers, there persists across the industry a view that the farmer is involved solely (or most importantly) in physical work and it is this which is given status. To be a farmer is to do physical work and to do physical work is to be a male. Furthermore, having legitimacy within the industry as an elected leader is equated with one's status as a farmer and the knowledge one has as a result of participation in on-farm physical work. Thus, while elected members cite the importance of having a diversity of knowledge to make up an effective agri-political board, the knowledge to which they refer is extremely narrow. The knowledge that women might have, for example, as a result of their high level of participation in financial management, is not afforded the same status and therefore does not entitle them to be a contender for industry leadership. Even on those few occasions in the sugar industry, where; because of their involvement in physical work, women have seen themselves as having a right to stand as an elected member, the gendered path to leadership continues to militate against their involvement. They are told to be visible in an industry where women are seldom seen, in an industry which rarely gives visibility to the work they do or the knowledge they have and in an industry where their contribution as partners in a farming enterprise does not necessarily entitle them to :franchise in the organisation. In addition, women do not have access to the same opportunities as men for demonstrating their visibility because the types of forums where visibility is judged (such as at industry meetings) are the very forums where women report their presence as being either denigrated or questioned. An understanding of rural culture provides further insight into the gendered nature of visibility and the way in which men's visibility is judged very differently from women's visibility. Within this culture, a woman who does demonstrate visibility may find herself censured by both women and men for operating against the status quo. The gendered path to leadership within CANEGROWERS culminates in both the definition and application of merit. While the term is purported by CANEGROWERS' elected members to be gender neutral an examination of the many extraneous factors which impact on the electoral process and the way in which they have differential meanings for women and men indicate that this is not the case. These factors include lack of options, longevity in office, grooming for office, the concept of tradition and family name, popularity, appointments outside of election, the conservatism of the constituency and protocol. Ultimately, within the organisation CANEGROWERS, merit has been equated with being a male. The research concludes that, while very few strategies have been initiated by CANEGROWERS to address the question of women's representation, there is some possibility for change in industry-based networks for women. These networks have the potential to challenge homogeneous and androcentric constructions of terms such as 'knowledge' and 'merit' and the potential to give women the confidence, space and opportunity to be 'visible'. Unfortunately, the findings indicate that there has been a high level of resistance to these networks. The resistance has characterised the involvement of women as a divisive force for families, communities and the broader industry. The potency of this discourse in terms of limiting women's involvement in networks is evident when one appreciates the way in which farm women so often subjugate their own needs to ensure that harmonious relationships are maintained. Overall, to be a successful force for positive change, sugar industry networks for women must be seen as legitimate forums for women to practice industry leadership, must be given unequivocal support from industry leaders and must be adequately resourced by the organisation. Most importantly, the formation of these networks must not be viewed as absolving the organisation from any need to make changes to its culture, processes and practices. The aim must be to make CANEGROWERS not just a 'men's organisation' as it was so often described in this research, with women's networks on the margins, but an organisation where both men and women can participate fully and equally. It would be unjust and inexcusable if CANEGROWERS' commitment to this research was used to suggest that impediments to women achieving leadership positions exist only in the sugar industry. The evidence that is available from the broader studies cited above is that this is not the case. What is different about CANEGROWERS is that they have commissioned research which has examined the nature of the culture and the construction of merit within the industry. That other agricultural industry groups have not cannot be used to suggest that CANEGROWERS or the sugar industry are particularly different from other agencies or industries. It is likely that very similar cultural constraints exist within their own agencies and industries. At the same time, knowing that women are likely to experience difficulties in participating in leadership in other agricultural agencies does not excuse or justify women's lack of inclusion in CANEGROWERS. This merely indicates that the entire agricultural sector needs to work harder to achieve greater diversity in representative decision-making positions.

This PhD thesis is a study of the changing social and industrial conditions under which sugar workers in Guyana have worked, and the responses of workers and unions to these changes since 1964. It makes extensive use of original trade union and employer archives, other public and private documentary evidence and interviews with workers and union and state officials. The narrative and analysis focuses on the experience of union rivalry and the impact of state interventions in wage settlements. The sugar industry has several different unions with differing political and ideological positions, and there have been numerous instances of union rivalry and workers' discontent over union representation. Inadequate wage offers have often led to disputes, involving antagonisms between workers and management but also between workers and their union. In practice the majority of wage settlements have resulted from the intervention of a Commission of Inquiry or Arbitration Tribunal. In the late 1970s the state's imposition of wage levels provoked numerous struggles, often of national proportions, and led to legal challenges by workers and one of their unions which resulted in the restoration of collective bargaining. Such developments have had major implications for the national labour movement. The thesis considers each of these facets of worker and union experience, and thus develops an analysis of the relationships between union rivalry, workers' resistance and wage settlements in the context of highly politicised trade unionism. In particular it discusses the implications of trade union affiliation to the major political parties and shows the extent to which political affiliation helped to destroy the collective bargaining process. It argues that while trade unions are involved in political struggles, they ought not to be affiliated to political parties, since this is likely to compromise the independence of the labour movement and weakens the collective bargaining process.

The dissertation involves an investigation into the circumstances of international competitiveness and how it is pursued by firms from different sugar producing and marketing nations. Understanding of competitiveness has primarily been pursued in terms of economic variables and market conditions. The roles of the government, the socio-cultural-political context in international business, and their effects on competitiveness have largely been ignored. This study integrates perspectives from strategic management, the resource-based view of the firm, and international business to propose a conceptual framework of international competitiveness. The work advances understanding of competitiveness in international business in two ways. First, it develops a conceptual framework that captures the socio-political element of a nation's industry and the crucial role it plays in achieving international competitiveness. Second, it combines firm, industry, strategy, and socio-political influences. Those are involved in a multi-level hierarchical process between firms, industry and the nation that effectively generates competitiveness. The dissertation employs a qualitative method of comparative analysis between Australia, Brazil and the European Union, which are the three dominant sugar producing and exporting economies in the world. A series of propositions are presented on the four identified influences on international competitiveness. How firms from different nations pursue these is highlighted. After considering the varied approaches for attaining international competitiveness, implications for further research and for theory, policy and practice are outlined.

The dissertation involves an investigation into the circumstances of international competitiveness and how it is pursued by firms from different sugar producing and marketing nations. Understanding of competitiveness has primarily been pursued in terms of economic variables and market conditions. The roles of the government, the socio-cultural-political context in international business, and their effects on competitiveness have largely been ignored. This study integrates perspectives from strategic management, the resource-based view of the firm, and international business to propose a conceptual framework of international competitiveness. The work advances understanding of competitiveness in international business in two ways. First, it develops a conceptual framework that captures the socio-political element of a nation's industry and the crucial role it plays in achieving international competitiveness. Second, it combines firm, industry, strategy, and socio-political influences. Those are involved in a multi-level hierarchical process between firms, industry and the nation that effectively generates competitiveness. The dissertation employs a qualitative method of comparative analysis between Australia, Brazil and the European Union, which are the three dominant sugar producing and exporting economies in the world. A series of propositions are presented on the four identified influences on international competitiveness. How firms from different nations pursue these is highlighted. After considering the varied approaches for attaining international competitiveness, implications for further research and for theory, policy and practice are outlined.

During the course of the Twentieth Century the Australian sugar industry became increasingly regulated to such an extent that by the 1980s it was the most highly regulated industry in Australia. Since the 1980s pressures, both internal and external to the industry, have resulted in significant deregulation and subsequent restructuring.

Internal pressures have resulted from the Australian government's adoption of economic rationalist polices in order to meet what it perceived to be the challenges of globalisation, as well as more localized factors such as prolonged periods of drought. Externally, declining terms of trade and increasing levels of competition are problematic.

This thesis seeks to determine whether or not the Australian sugar industry's restructuring exercises are sufficient to meet the challenges presented by an increasingly globalised economy and fiercer international competition. In so doing it considers the role of the state and transnational capital. It also reflects upon the sustainability of the industry.

In order to understand what is happening within the Australian sugar industry, the thesis engages the explanatory power of agricultural restructuring and globalization theory. Theoretically the thesis is informed but not determined by the globalization perspective developed by Le Heron (1993). It also incorporates insights derived from McMichael, Wiseman, and Lawrence. The thesis employs methodology derived from the combination of two different but complementary procedures, namely, commodity systems analysis as proposed and refined by Friedland (1984, 2001), and the commodity chain approach as described by Hopkins and Wallerstein (1986).

The thesis concludes that while the Australian industry appears to be deregulating and restructuring according to global logic, if fully enacted according to the trajectory implied by the deregulatory process, some portions of the Australian industry may be rendered unsustainable.

The relative importance of demographic or 'grower characteristics' as variables that influence adoption of environmentally innovative canegrowing practices is questioned in this thesis. Research, which involved a quantitative study of over 1000 sugarcane producers from Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia, indicates that 'socio-cultural' factors are equally, and in some cases more, significant predictors of the adoption of environmentally innovative canegrowing practices than growers' personal attributes. The research indicates that the social, cultural and economic contexts that growers operate within considerably influence the extent to which knowledge is acquired and environmentally innovative canegrowing practices adopted. Analysis of the data utilises a range of demographic and property characteristics variables, and socio-cultural variables (such as group involvement, gendered division of labour and on-farm knowledge production) to determine their relationship to the adoption of environmentally innovative canegrowing practices.

Research and development into new and environmentally innovative canegrowing practices, as well as the transfer of such innovations, has primarily occurred through the medium of science and technology. Established methods of 'extension', which have previously been used to transfer knowledge in relation to new cane varieties and more productive means of producing sugarcane, are now being turned towards encouraging producers towards environmentally innovative agricultural practices. The degree to which scientific research and development, coupled with traditional methods of 'technology transfer' has been successful in promoting the adoption of environmental innovations is a topic that members of the sugar industry and the wider community have increasingly called into question. The adoption of environmental innovations has not been readily discernible at a ground level and has led to a belief that the extent of take-up of environmentally innovative canegrowing practices has been quite limited.

Scientific organisations involved with the sugar industry had expected that the adoption of new technology would relate in some way to the producer's age, level of education, years of experience or other 'personal' or demographic characteristics. Furthermore, the perceived low rate of adoption led industry personnel to believe that established methods of research and extension no longer had the support or confidence of sugarcane growers. To the contrary, the research for this thesis has found that growers do hold traditional methods of extension in high regard. This is particularly so in the case of advice received from the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations (BSES), the oldest and most established research, development and extension agency in the sugar industry.

This thesis is substantially based upon a 'materialist' premise and argues that knowledge in relation to innovative canegrowing practices is both produced and diffused through social relationships and social practices. A sociological approach, which brings the 'materiality' of human existence to the forefront of analysis, is used to argue that scientific and lay forms of knowledge are produced through the actions of and interactions between human subjects.

The research indicates that the adoption of environmentally innovative canegrowing practices is quite widespread but in the main does not bear sufficiently strong significant relationships to grower's personal (demographic) characteristics or socio-economic variables such as the size, productivity or profitability of the canegrowing enterprise. Moreover, while significant relationships have been found between adoption and various 'socio-cultural' variables such as 'group involvement', 'sources of information', 'attitudes to chemical usage' and 'attitudes to the current state of the industry', the relationships are also trivial in accounting for variance in the adoption variables.

Furthermore, while practices are assumed to be applicable across the sugar industry, adoption is found to be influenced by factors peculiar to local canegrowing areas. The research undertaken highlights the fact that activities, which occur at the farm level are imbued with a cultural complexity that goes beyond - the mere production of agricultural commodities for the sake of accumulation of an economic surplus.

It is apparent that a range of factors influence the extent to which environmentally innovative agricultural practices are adopted in the sugar industry. While demographic and farm characteristics go some way towards accounting for the adoption of environmental innovations in the sugar industry, the social and socio-cultural conditions under which growers operate must also be taken into consideration.

This thesis argues that the ‘rule of law’ was not followed in colonial and post-federation Australia in relation to a fundamental principle of the common law. According to the rule in Calvin’s Case (1608), no person born as a ‘subject’ in any part of the King’s dominions could be an ‘alien’. This was the legal position in Australia from the reception of English law until well after federation. In colonial and post-federation Australia the racial meaning of ‘alien’ was consistently used in political and legal contexts instead of its proper legal meaning. In legislation and parliamentary debates, cases and prosecutions, inter-colonial conferences and conventions it was employed to refer not merely to those who were ‘aliens’ under the common law but also to people regarded as ‘aliens’ in the broader or racial sense of the word, especially those of non-European background. Chinese and Indian settlers, Pacific islanders and even indigenous Australians were treated as ‘aliens’ in Australia even if under British law they were actually ‘subjects’ of the Crown and not ‘aliens’ at all in the accepted legal sense. In the 1820s and 1830s the New South Wales Supreme Court thought it inconceivable that ‘barbarous’ indigenous inhabitants could ‘owe fealty’ or allegiance to the British Crown, considering their legal position analogous to that of ‘foreigners’ or ‘strangers’. In debates on exclusionary legislation in the 1870s and 1880s, parliamentarians in the Australian colonies portrayed all Chinese settlers as ‘aliens’, despite acknowledging that many came from Hong Kong, the Straits Settlements or other British possessions. Immigrants from British India were generally treated the same way. Delegates to Australia’s constitutional conventions in the 1890s, including prominent legal figures, repeated this mistake. And in the 1900s Pacific islanders born in Australia as British subjects were deported as ‘aliens’ with the approval of the Australian High Court. The misuse of ‘alien’ in this case contributed to a defective judgment still cited today in support of the Commonwealth’s claims to extensive exclusionary power. Between federation and the Second World War, Queensland’s dictation test legislation and industrial awards regulating various occupations provide many examples of the misuse and manipulation of the term ‘alien’ in a legal context. In prosecutions under these laws the word was used as a weapon against non-Europeans whether they were ‘aliens’ under the law or not. Commentators both in the early years of federation and in more recent times have failed to identify the misuse of ‘alien’– and have made the same error themselves. This mistake is critical because of the continued force of the term in Australian law. The Commonwealth’s sweeping power to define who shall be citizens of Australia and to exclude, detain indefinitely without trial and deport ‘aliens’ is still justified by reference to colonial and post-federation cases and constitutional convention debates where ‘alien’ was incorrectly used in its racial sense contrary to the rule of law.

Agriculture in Australia has had a lively history. The first European settlers in 1788 brought agricultural technologies with them from their homelands, influencing early practices in Australia. Wool production dominated the 19th century, while dairying grew rapidly during the first half of the 20th century. Despite having one of the driest landscapes in the world, Australia has been successful in adapting agricultural practices to the land, and these innovations in farming are explained in this well-researched volume. Focusing on the technologies that the farmers and graziers actually used, this book follows the history of each of the major commodities or groups of commodities to the end of the 20th century: grain crops, sheep and wool, beef and dairy, working bullocks and horses, sugar, cotton, fruit and vegetables, and grapes and wine. Major issues facing the various agricultural enterprises as they enter the 21st century are also discussed. Written in a readable style to suit students of history, social sciences and agriculture, Australian Agriculture will also appeal to professionals in the industry and those with a general interest in Australian sociology and history.

In a commercial society like ours it is understandable that money-makers should be the ones who pay the greatest attention to the implications of economics. Historians have been a breed apart, with most of them (until recently) paying little heed to the ways in which economics affects history. Yet surprisingly, a basis for the eventual integration of economics, ecology, and history was laid in the nineteenth century. The Victorian who tackled history from the economic side was William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882). The distinction made in the previous chapter between living in a area and living on it was a paraphrase of what Jevons wrote about the material basis of English prosperity: "The plains of North America and Russia are our cornfields; Chicago and Odessa our granaries; Canada and the Baltic are our timber forests; Australia contains our sheep farms, and in South America are our herds of oxen;.. . the Chinese grow tea for us, and our coffee, sugar, and spice plantations are in all the Indies. Spain and France are our vineyards, and the Mediterranean our fruit-garden.'" A century before the term "ghost acres" was coined, Jevons had clearly in mind the idea behind the term. Half a century before Jevons was born—in fact in the year the Bastille was stormed by French revolutionaries (1789)—an English mineral surveyer by the name of John Williams had asked, in The Limited Quantity of Coal of Britain, what would happen to the blessings of the industrial revolution when England no longer possessed the wherewithal to power the machinery that produced her wealth? Optimism is so deeply engrained a characteristic of busy people that this warning, like most first warnings, was little noted. It remained for Jevons to rouse the British public in 1865 with the publication of his book, The Coal Question. Jevons's life coincided in time with the period when the nature and significance of energy (in its prenuclear formulation) was becoming manifest to physical scientists. Since energy was needed to turn the wheels of industry, and coal was the most readily available source of energy, Jevons reasoned that the continued political dominance of Great Britain was dependent on the bounty of her coal. This naturally led to the double question, How long would English coal and the British Empire last?