Australia is a country of geographical paradoxes. One particular point foreigners note about Australia is its sheer size. It boasts an area the size of North America - minus Alaska - yet its population is a mere 21 million. One of Australia's biggest problems these days is its declining farming industry, yet the area of its agricultural land alone is greater than the combined land area of France and Japan. While it is the driest continent in the world, its renewable water resources per head are twice as large as those of the United States - a country with a population ten-fold greater.…