Australian Natural Resources Atlas

Natural Resource Topics

Agriculture - Statistics - Northern (SD) (NSW)

Northern (SD) (NSW)

Location map for SD: 130

Introduction

Northern Statistical Division covers 12 percent of the State and contains 2.9 percent of the population.

There are three identifiable regions in the Division - the northern tablelands (mainly undulating hill lands generally over 1000 meters above sea level), the northern slopes to the west of the tablelands, and the flat north central plains, watered by the MacIntyre, Gwydir, and Namoi Rivers. The tablelands is an area with mild summers and cold winters and a moderate rainfall, with the heaviest rainfall occurring in summer. West of the tablelands the summers are warm to hot, with a similar rainfall pattern. Tamworth is the principle city of the Division, and the centre of communications system by rail, road, and air. The main northern rail line from Newcastle passes through Quirindi, Tamworth, Armidale, Glen Innes, and Tenterfield. There is an extensive highway system linking all of the major towns and cities if the division.

The value of building jobs approved in 1995-96 was $120 million, 21.6 percent of which were approved in Tamworth (C).

The number of agricultural establishments in the Division at the end of 1994-95 represented 15.87 percent of the State total. Within the Division significant crops grown included wheat for grain on 198,138 hectares or 14 percent of the State total; and cotton on 95,661 hectares or 61 percent of the State total. Moree Plains(A), Narrabri(A) and Yallaroi(A) together had 76 percent of the area sown to wheat and 88 percent of the area sown to cotton.

The Division had 6.4 million sheep and lambs in 1994-95 representing 15.2 percent of the State total. These were distributed throughout the Division in Guyra (A) (689,000), Walcha (A) (663,000) Uralla (A) (653,000) and Dumaresq (A) (649,000). Cattle and calves were distributed throughout the Division and amounted to 1.6 million head, representing 26 per cent of the State total.

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): 9,809,473.07

Area

Agroforestry

Apples

Berry Fruit

Cattle and Calves

Cereals excluding Rice

Citrus

Cotton

Grapes

Legumes

Nuts

Oilseeds

Other Livestock

Other Non-Cereal Crops

Other Vegetables

Pastures

Pears

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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