VACP - ROUNDING UP COMMODITY VALUES

The annual publication, Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced, Australia (cat. no. 7503.0) outlines the dollar value for a variety of selected agricultural commodities. The national, state and territory level data, released on 31 May 2011, includes final estimates for commodities such as crops, livestock and livestock products as well as fruit and vegetables. The release also includes small area data by Natural Resource Management (NRM) regions and Statistical Divisions (SD) which were released as downloadable data cubes (spreadsheets) on 28 July 2011.

In 2009-10, the gross value of total Australian agricultural production was $39.6 billion. This was a $2.2 billion (5%) decrease from 2008-09 and was caused largely by a combination of the strong Australian dollar, decreased crop and stock sizes, as well as increased competition. Most commodities experienced falls, almost reminiscent of that terrible supermarket ad ..."down, down ... prices are down" - but there were a few that bucked against the downward trend and popped their heads up into the positive area of the ledger.

Key movements included:

• Wheat - down by 21% to $4.8 billion.
• Barley - down by 27% to $1.4 billion.
• Canola - down by 17% to $840 million.
• Cattle and calves - down by 2% to $7.3 billion.
• Milk - down by 15% to $3.4 billion.

but, on a slightly more positive note ...

• Sheep and lambs - up by 5% to $2.6 billion
• Wool - up by 7% to $1.9 billion.

The three highest producing commodities (gross value) were:

• Cattle and calves ($7.3 billion)
• Wheat for grain ($4.8 billion)
• Whole milk ($3.4 billion)

The graph below shows a comparison between 2009-10 and 2008-09 commodity values:




So, if you would like to see the data on a particular commodity of interest to you, or for a particular region of our wide, brown land, go to the ABS website via Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced, Australia (cat. no. 7503.0) and all will be revealed.