The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) has developed this Snapshot to inform policy and decision makers about the workforce characteristics and diversity of people and communities that contribute to Australian agriculture.

In recent years there has been increasing interest in monitoring social dimensions of primary industries in Australia, however there has been no regular reporting of social data in the forestry sector.

There are many changes occurring in rural and regional communities in the Murray-Darling Basin as a result of climate change, water availability, water trading, global markets, population movements and ongoing social changes. Basin communities will respond to and be affected by a range of these drivers in combination with their adaptive capacity, resilience and vulnerability.