Aust older farmers and underpaid "Aust older farmers and underpaid "

Australian farmers are older, more work and more poor people pay in other jobs, according to a recent survey.

But there are better educated than ever, operating at less than traditional farmers and more like business managers to reap significant rewards in trading Asian Century.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday marked 2012 - Year of the Farmer - releasing a comprehensive snapshot detailing the changing nature of life on earth.

Most farms in Australia now are small in size and value of agricultural production.

More than half had an estimated value of transactions of less than $ A100, 000 ($ NZ124, 515), and almost three-quarters covered less than 500 hectares.

Still farmland was studied at 410 million hectares, equivalent to half of the land mass of Australia, Queensland to spend more than 80 percent of their land to agriculture.

The number of Australians who work the land is declining rapidly as smaller farms sold to corporate interests and slows down the number of young people have more family owned properties.

In fact, there were about 20,000 farmers less in 2011 than five years earlier, with events such as severe droughts also route the workforce.

The number of women working on farms has declined in recent years to about a quarter, although plenty subsidize family income by taking a job off the farm.

Farmers are overwhelmingly Australian born, with a median age of 53 versus 40 years for people in other occupations.

They also work long hours, with more than half of clock at least 49 hours a week for earning considerably less ($ A568 a week disposable income) than other jobs.

But as agricultural work becomes more complex, education levels are rising.

In the 30 years to 2011, the proportion of Australian farmers with a bachelor's degree or higher increased sixfold.

With the production of food alert the UN will have to increase by 70 percent to meet growing world population, Australian farmers stand to take advantage of current opportunities.