Bachelor of Agriculture

Agriculture's focus on science and sustainability is how we will adapt to our changing climate, declining environmental health and increasing demand for safe food production to feed our growing populations.

A Bachelor of Agriculture is your opportunity to use science, technology and business to tackle critical sustainability issues and build a career with lasting impact. If you'd like to understand how to harness natural processes to sustainably feed our growing population, improve natural resource management and contribute to Australia's growing agricultural industry, the Bachelor of Agriculture is an ideal choice. You'll learn the science necessary to produce safe, high-quality and ethical food and fibre as well as the economics underpinning Australia's important role in international trade. Australia is a major global supplier of agricultural goods, with $70.1 billion worth of exports forecast in 2024-25 (Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry).

An agriculture degree lets you apply biology, chemistry, physics, and economics and see the real-world results of your actions. Whether you start your post-university career in a laboratory, on farms or in a bank, you'll be making a real impact on the world. You'll complement your lab and classroom learning with fieldwork, and you can even choose to spend a semester learning at our agricultural research and teaching campus at Dookie, giving you additional hands-on experience and knowledge of farm operations.

Agriculture is at the beginning of a technological revolution, with research by Melbourne academics playing a leading role. Drone-based sensors can monitor plants for disease and water stress across areas equivalent to hundreds of football fields in under an hour. 'Big data' and machine learning will give you tools to help farmers grow more food while reducing agriculture's environmental impact.

Plants and animals provide more food and fibre when we protect their health and welfare. Our academics determine the best ways to maintain the welfare of farm animals, develop diets to help livestock thrive in hot and dry conditions, discover the origin, spread and effects of disease and develop new medicines. Our scientists are using precision gene-editing tools to develop crops that can survive disease, drought and heat.

Farmers manage 55 per cent of Australia's landmass (Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Science). In a changing climate we need to maintain a healthy environment too. Benefit from the knowledge and expertise of our researchers as they find ways to make farming more drought-resilient, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve soil health and re-use waste while producing high-quality food. You'll learn how to monitor and optimise the transfer of nutrients from soils to plants to animals and how to make land and water use more sustainable by applying agricultural science and economics.