A Shared Harvest tells the story of the development of the Australian wheat industry in the twentieth century. The book surveys and analyzes an industry central to Australian life-as a major employer of labor, as a vital contributor to the national rural export income, and as a moulder of the very fabric of the rural environment. Themes are treated in separate chapters which deal with the political economy of the industry, the changing nature of wheat farming, the role of technology and science, and the marketing of wheat in Australia and abroad. The focus of the book is on the period since 1939, the year in which a national wheat stabilization scheme was introduced and the Australian Wheat Board was established. The authors take the story up to 1989 when, after a long and bitter battle, the industry was deregulated and a new phase in its history began.
Includes index.
Bibliography: p. 309-315.