The North is crushing it Burdekin, Herbert produce 12 million tonnes of sugarcane

NORTH Queensland is officially the sweetest region, having produced 35 per cent of the country’s harvested cane.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released new data that reveals the Herbert and Burdekin regions were the highest performing cane harvesters in 2019/2020.

Townsville region, which stretches from Ingham to Ayr, harvested almost 12 million tonnes worth of sugar, while the Mackay/isaac/whitsunday region produced about 7.7 million tonnes.

Queensland has harvested more than 28.4 million tonnes of cane while the New South Wales regions of Coffs Harbour, Grafton, Richmond and Tweed cut just 1.6 million tonnes.

Based on the ABS data, which covers the 2019/2020 period, the Herbert and Burdekin regions remain the biggest harvesters of cane in the country, with Mackay and Cairns closely behind.

Just 32,300 tonnes of cane was cut in the southeast corner in the Logan, Beaudesert and Sunshine Coast regions.

Since Queensland mills began crushing in June, 130,635 tonnes of cane has been crushed, just 0.4 per cent of the predicted cane to be processed this year.

Government and industry affairs director at the Australian Sugar Milling Council Jim Crane said the ABS data was a welcome innovation.

“This ABS report is a useful start to help visualise and understand the wealth of sugar industry data,” Mr Crane said.

“Historically, the sugar industry has grouped regions a little differently and we will be keen to continue to work with the ABS to ensure the ongoing close alignment of their published data with our regionally based statistics.

“Overall, the ASMC-PUBlished figures show that the Herbert/burdekin region crushed 11.96 million tonnes of cane last year, compared to 7.74 million tonnes of cane crushed in Mackay/proserpine.”

Queensland’s 2020 raw sugar production is expected to be 4.1 to 4.2 million tonnes, slightly more than the 2019 total of 4.08 million tonnes.