The Changing Social Landscape of Rural Victoria

This report is focussed upon agricultural industries of Victoria and the rural community that works in these industries or supports them. It describes four social landscapes in rural Victoria and the social forces that are driving these landscapes on differing trajectories of change.

Understanding the future shape of this community is important for our management of the State's land, water and biodiversity resources. Also understanding the social trends that will shape the future farm community is important in assisting us to understand the potential and limits to government policy in rural areas.

The interaction and relative influences of productivity, amenity, culture and demographic forces will reshape the social landscape of Victorian rural communities over the next twenty years, much as it has already reshaped the present social landscape over the past twenty years.

The report is available in PDF format. To view the attached PDFs you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. A free copy can be downloaded from Adobe Acrobat (external link).

Introduction	(PDF 84kb)
Executive Summary	(PDF 117kb)
Production	(PDF 1345kb)
Amenity (in two parts)	Part One: (PDF 1440kb) Part Two: (PDF 343kb)
Transition	(PDF 1448kb)
Irrigation	(PDF 416kb)
Conclusions and Appendix	(PDF 387kb)