Australia is the smallest continent and one of the largest countries on Earth, lying between the Pacific and Indian oceans, with a population of 25.36 million, over 325,300 employed in agriculture, forestry, and fishing as of February 2015. Agriculture and its closely related sectors earn $155 billion a year for a 12% share of GDP. The number of people working in the agriculture industry increased by 4.1 percent between 2011 and 2016. In 2016, 228,372 people were directly employed in the agriculture industry, representing 2.2 percent of all employed people in Australia. In 2016, people in Australia said that their occupation as a farmer or farm manager declined from 157,144 in 2011. Of these most were livestock farmers (47 percent), crop farmers (28 percent), and mixed crop and livestock farmers (16 percent). Fifty-five percent of farmers and farm managers were owners of an enterprise and 26 percent were contributing family members. The median age of farmers and farm managers was 54 and 13 percent were under 35.
