Sugarcane Industry
Sugar is one of Australia’s most important rural industries, worth over $1.5-$2.5 billion to the Australian economy. According to CANEGROWERS, in a typical year, the industry produces 32-35 Mt of cane and 4.5-5 Mt of raw sugar across about 4000 cane farming businesses, which are located in Queensland and northern NSW. There are 24 sugar mills along from Grafton in the south to Mossmann in the north, and sugar is exported from six bulk storage ports. According to ABARES, in 2009-2010, Australia crushed 31 million tonnes of cane from an area of 386,000 hectares. This produced 4.5 million tonnes of sugar, of which 3.2 million tonnes went to export.