Ag Mag | the agriculture newsletter

AGRICULTURAL CENSUS MESH BLOCK CODING
Mesh blocks are new micro level units of geography used by the ABS. These new units are small enough to aggregate Agricultural Census data accurately to the wide range of different spatial units used by other organisations. Address information provided in the 2005-06 Agricultural Census was used to assign a latitude and longitude to more than 151,000 farms. Each farm was then allocated to the appropriate mesh block. This process has enabled the ABS to expand the range and usefulness of its output products. Most data items are still available in the traditional output formats (National, State, Statistical Division, Statistical Sub-Division and Statistical Local Area) but major items can now also be outputed by River Basins, Drainage Divisions and NRM areas.

As well, this flexible geography provides the capacity to produce data from the 2005-06 Agricultural Census for user defined regions, subject to confidentiality constraints. These customised data services are prepared on a 'fee for service' basis.

The provision of estimates for a range of regions was made possible by funding provided by the National Water Commission through Raising National Water Standards, and through natural resource management programs administered by the Departments of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.

A presentation outlining the project and providing examples of the mapped data is attached in PDF format.