Australian Farm Equity Ratio by Statistical Division, 1996-1999 Average

Median farm equity ratios for Australian broadacre and dairy farms averaged over three years from 1996-1997 to 1998-1999. The data was collected by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences through annual farm survey interviews and farm accounts. It includes attributes such as the average equity ratio, the proportion of properties with equity below 80%, and the relative standard error for each Statistical Division.

Use Cases

• Mapping regional financial vulnerability based on the proportion of properties with a farm equity ratio less than 80%.
• Analyzing spatial patterns in farm business equity as a percentage of owned capital.
• Assessing data reliability for economic modeling using the relative standard error (RSE) attribute.
• Correlating agricultural land use area (Ag_land_ha) with farm equity metrics at the Statistical Division level.

Strengths

• Data covers a defined three-year period from 1996-1997 to 1998-1999.
• Includes multiple derived metrics: average ratio, proportion below a threshold, and a measure of statistical error (RSE).
• Explicit handling of missing data with codes like -88888 for no data and -99999 for metropolitan areas.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is over 25 years old; freshness should be verified for contemporary analysis.

Provenance

Source

Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES), Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry.

Collection Method

Collected by annual farm survey interview and supplemented by information in farm accounts.

Time Range

1996-1997 to 1998-1999 (three-year average).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 20:53:51.638097; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Statistical Division (SD) level for Australia.