Bernard Salt, a columnist at The Australian takes a look at the demographics of Australian vegetable, fruit and grain production. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics annual statement of agricultural production by region for the 2015 financial year, last financial year 117,000 agribusiness units produced output valued at $54 billion. This figure is up 51 per cent on the value of production a decade earlier when there were 130,000 agribusiness units.
Fewer farms (or agribusiness businesses) have lifted output at a rate that has outpaced population growth since 2005. The conclusion is that Australia’s efficient agriculture sector is exporting more today than it was a decade ago. That’s good for Australia and good for agriculture.
The regions that contribute most to this nation’s agricultural output are the West Australian wheatbelt, which produces $5bn in recurring output, followed by Queensland’s Darling Downs with $3bn in output and Victoria’s Wimmera-Mallee, also with $3bn in output. Drought, disease or pestilence in any of these regions severely impacts Australian agricultural output and export capacity.
The most interesting aspect of this dataset is the way different agricultural products cluster in different parts of the continent. Each year the Cairns region produces 236,000 tonnes of bananas or 94 per cent of Australia production.
Beyond bananas, there are mushrooms that are mostly produced in greater Melbourne and in greater Sydney, both of which include market gardens just beyond the city edges. However, it is Melbourne that tops Sydney as this nation’s mushroom capital, producing 13 tonnes, or 38 per cent, of national production. Greater Sydney produces 10 tonnes of mushrooms each year.
Previous editions of the agricultural data report show that Melbourne also rules the nation in celery production (and especially the area south of Cranbourne) with 25,000 tonnes. Sydney, on the other hand, produces just 15 tonnes of celery. Melbourne beats Sydney in celery production!
