Australian Natural Resources Atlas

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Agriculture - Statistics - Fitzroy (SD)

Fitzroy (SD)

Location map for SD: 330

Introduction

Fitzroy Statistical Division lies south of the Mackay SD. The main industries in the Division are beef cattle farming, mineral mining, coal mining, cotton, grain, lucerne and sunflower crops, and tourism.

Rockhampton is the main city in this Division. It lies along the Tropic of Capricorn and the Fitzroy River. Two of Australia's largest meat processing and exporting factories are located here. There is also an important Aboriginal cultural centre, the Dreamtime Cultural Centre.

Gladstone, south of Mackay and 550 km north of Brisbane, is one of Queensland's major ports, handling grain, coal and aluminium. Bauxite, from Weipa on the Gulf of Carpentaria, is processed into alumina, and, on Boyne Island, Comalco has built an aluminium smelter. A power station has been built to supply the power to the smelter and refinery as well as feeding into the State's electricity grid.

Sapphires were discovered at Anakie in the 1860s. The world's largest sapphire, the 733 carat Star of Queensland, was found here in 1934. One of the largest man-made holes in the world is that of the Mount Morgan open-cut gold, silver and copper mine. It measures 800 metres across and 274 metres deep. While it is not as profitable as it once was, it is still in production. In a century of mining, Mount Morgan has produced more than 5 million ounces of gold and more than 150,000 tonnes of copper, along with silver, lead and zinc.

In the Callide Valley is an open cut coal mine and power station. The surrounding area supports lucerne, cotton and sunflower crops, all irrigated by underground water. The main town in the area is Biloela. Theodore, south of Biloela, is a service town for the grain and cotton crops in the surrounding area.

Yeppoon, 40 km north-east of Rockhampton, lies on the shores of Keppel Bay. Keppel Sands, Emu Park, Causeway Lake, Rosslyn Bay , Cooee Bay and Yeppoon are collectively known as the Capricorn Coast. Great Keppel Island is 13 km offshore.

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): 12,295,019.83

Area

Agroforestry

Berry Fruit

Cattle and Calves

Cereals excluding Rice

Citrus

Cotton

Grapes

Legumes

Nuts

Oilseeds

Other Livestock

Other Non-Cereal Crops

Other Vegetables

Pastures

Pigs

Plantation Fruit

Potatoes

Poultry

Sales of Livestock

Sheep and Lambs

Stone Fruit

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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