The area around the town is primarily used for agriculture, mostly grazing of sheep, cattle and the associated dairy industry. Opium poppies have been grown, for pharmaceutical production, since the 1970s. Early land modification is evident in an irrigation system, consisting of of land with artificial irrigation and drainage channels. These were made in the late 1840s, diverting water from the Meander River and returning excess further downstream, and are still used. Meander sits astride the Meander River, near the Great Western Tiers, between the mountains Quamby Bluff and Mother Cummings Peak.