Broadacre crops top $28.9 billion in 2022-23

Key broadacre crops hit a value of more than $28.9 billion in the 2022-23 financial year, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Rob Walter, ABS head of agriculture statistics, said: “It was a bumper year for wheat and canola in particular, with 41.2 million tonnes of wheat sold worth $13.5 billion and 8.9 million tonnes of canola sold worth $6.6 billion.”

Horticulture crops (including wine grapes) had a combined local value of $17.2 billion. Fruit was the largest contributor to this with a local value of $7.3 billion followed by vegetables with a local value of $5.8 billion.

The value of livestock disposals declined one per cent to $23.3 billion in 2022-23. Cattle was the largest contributor at $13.9 billion, a drop of 2.4 per cent while poultry bucked the trend, increasing by 15.6 per cent to $3.6 billion.

At 30 June 2023 there were 29.9 million head of cattle, a 4 per cent increase on the previous year.

“This is the largest cattle herd in the past five years as rainfall and favourable conditions supported farmers rebuilding their herds,” Mr Walter said.

The ABS is modernising our agriculture statistics by making greater use of existing data sources.

These sources, including satellite derived crop mapping and administrative levy payer data support greater regional detail which highlights the regions behind Australian agriculture. For example, the data showed that Morawa in Western Australia had the highest production of wheat at 2.1 million tonnes.

Western Australia also had the highest producing regions for canola and barley, with Esperance Surrounds producing 538,000 tonnes of canola and Kulin producing 1.4 million tonnes of barley in 2022-23.

“This regional detail was also available for some horticulture statistics and showed that Bundaberg was the avocado and macadamia capital of Australia in 2022-23,” Mr Walter said.

One in every five avocados (19 per cent) was grown in Bundaberg Surrounds (South), which produced 21.5 thousand tonnes of avocados, while Bundaberg Surrounds (North) produced 11 thousand tonnes of macadamias (23 per cent of total Australian production).

Partnerships between industry, academia and government have been a fundamental part of the modernisation of agriculture statistics. This collaboration has helped to identify data sources and refine new methods to produce trusted statistics.

“These partnerships with industry experts have enabled the ABS to produce agriculture statistics without conducting an annual farm survey,” Mr Walter said.

“Replacing the annual survey with existing data sources has reduced the time Australian farmers collectively spend answering surveys by an average of 20,000 hours each year.”

The ABS thanks our new partners and Australian farmers for working with us as we continue to modernise Australian agricultural statistics.