Agriculture

You will never guess from reading these two books that Australia is generally regarded by the rest of the world as the best place to seek information on scientific sheep management and efficient wool production.

For more than thirty years Australian scientists have successfully led the search for a better understanding of the biological workings of a sheep, the structure and growth of wool fibres and of the ecological intricacies of pasture management. During the same period wool technologists have made tremendous strides in the preparation, handling and measurement of wool, while economists have made their own important contributions to the more efficient management of sheep and the more efficient marketing of wool.

The old narrative goes that first we were hunter–gatherers, then we discovered farming, then agricultural communities ‘progressed’ to states and, eventually, industrial cities. This ‘progression’ is supposedly how humans became ‘civilised’. This old narrative has been debunked by many ...