Australian Natural Resources Atlas

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Agriculture - Statistics - Mackay (SD)

Mackay (SD)

Location map for SD: 340

Introduction

Mackay Statistical Division lies on the Queensland coast just north of the Tropic of Capricorn. The main economic base of this Division is sugar, coal, cattle and tourism.

From Sarina, south of Mackay, to the northern border there is little but fields of sugar cane. Mackay has five sugar mills in the area and has one of the largest bulk-sugar loading terminals in the world. The nearby Hay Point coal-loading facilities handle the huge output from the Central Queensland coal fields. Other important industries in the area are beef cattle, dairying, timber, grain and seafood. Tropical fruit growing is also important. Sugar was first grown in 1866 and the same year Mackay became a town. In 1939 a breakwater was built and the harbour became one of the largest artificial harbours in the country. The tourism industry is growing because of the close proximity to the Great Barrier Reef and Brampton, Lindeman, Hamilton and the Whitsunday Islands.

Dysart is a company town built to house miners working in the huge Saraji and Norwich Park coal mines. Moranbah is also a mining town for the Goonyella and Peak Downs coal operations. The coking coal from here is railed to the Hay Point export terminal.

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): 6,872,880.05

Area

Agroforestry

Berry Fruit

Cattle and Calves

Cereals excluding Rice

Citrus

Cotton

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

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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