Australian Natural Resources Atlas

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Agriculture - Statistics - Far North (SD)

Far North (SD)

Location map for SD: 350

Introduction

Far North Statistical Division encompasses most of the Cape York Peninsula and all the Islands in the Torres Shire, including Thursday Island. The Gulf country and northern part of the peninsula in the north of the Division, is isolated and rarely visited. It is fairly inaccessable except at the height of the dry season. Much of the rest of the year, the savannah and open woodland is soggy desert. Rainforests flourish in the east where the 525,000 ha Lakefield National Park is the largest in the State. The other main national parks in this Division are Daintree, Rokeby, Archer Bend, Cape Melville, Endeavour River and Hinchinbrook National Parks. Much of the coastline in this part of the Division is crocodile infested estuaries. In the southern coastal part of the Division is the 300 km rainforest belt of the Great Dividing Range, which stretches through the wilderness of the Mossman Gorge Nati

The two main towns in the south-west of the Division are Croydon, a former gold town, and Georgetown, also a gold town, where some mining still continues. The area around Georgetown is now noted for its gemstones, especially agate and onyx. Chillagoe, to the north-east, was once a centre for copper, silver, lead, gold and wolfram mining but has now developed its tourism and marble mines.

Cairns is the most northerly city in the State and is famed for its game fishing and tourist features such as the Great Barrier Reef. Resorts such as Port Douglas have sprung up all around the area. It is also a sugar shipping port. South of Cairns is Tully, the wettest town in Australia with an average annual rainfall of 4490 mm. From Tully to Mossman cane fields create a fertile green pattern along the coast.

Inland is the Atherton Tableland, rising more than 700 metres from the coast. This part of the Division's industries are varied. Mareeba is the country's biggest tobacco district. Farms in the area are irrigated from Lake Tinaroo. Rice, timber and cattle are also important. Atherton is the agricultural centre of the Tablelands and there are huge maize silos in the area.

The figures reported here are a subset of the Agricultural Census data from 1982/1983 to 1996/1997 published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS, AgStats). The data has been analysed by the Bureau of Rural Sciences using a consistent geographic base. Further information about the data is available from the Australian Spatial Data Directory

The figures and text are reproduced with permission of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, © Commonwealth of Australia, 2000.

Statistics

Area of region (ha): 26,714,383.00

Area

Agroforestry

Berry Fruit

Cattle and Calves

Cereals excluding Rice

Citrus

Grapes

Legumes

Nuts

Other Livestock

Other Non-Cereal Crops

Other Vegetables

Pastures

Pigs

Plantation Fruit

Potatoes

Poultry

Sales of Livestock

Sheep and Lambs

Stone Fruit

Sugar Cane

Further information

Please Note: Not all the selected data items are available for every year or for every statistical region.

The figures reported here are a subset of the Agricultural Census data from 1982/1983 to 1996/1997 published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS, AgStats). The data have been analysed by Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia to report them using a consistent geographic base. Further information about the data is available through the Australian Spatial Data Directory.

The subset includes 436 data items for plant production and 40 data items for livestock which were commonly available in the AgStats database over the 15 year period and each year for respondents having an Estimated Value of Agricultural Operations (EVAO) above the cut-off of $22,500.

The data have been concorded by bringing data collected using different geographies to a consistent geographic base, being Version 2.6 Statistical Local Area (SLA) boundaries (ABS, 1996) and using the non-agricultural lands mask from the National Land and Water Resources Audit's National Landuse Map (1996/1997).

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