The ACT's agricultural footprint has expanded with sheep and cattle numbers rising along with a 56 per cent jump in agricultural water use, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
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Data from the 2015-16 Agricultural Census shows 11 per cent of land in the territory, some 25,448 hectares, was under agricultural production and managed by 40 businesses.
![A Hereford cow grazing on land at Kowen Forest. Photo: Rohan Thomson A Hereford cow grazing on land at Kowen Forest. Photo: Rohan Thomson](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/faa10908-db1e-4ef9-9185-53a4a91534c8/r0_0_2000_1330_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The value of Australia's agriculture industry has reached a new high of $56 billion.
However ACT remains a relatively small contributor to total national value, accounting for 0.01 per cent or $8.3 million of it.
During the 12 month period the ACT witnessed a 2 per cent rise in sheep and lamb flock, totalling 45,059 a head.
ABS director of Environment and Agriculture Statistics Lauren Binns said the trends were also positive for cattle in the territory.
"There was an increase in the value of cattle and calves slaughtered from $2.8 million in 2014-15 to $3.3 million in 2015-16," she said.
This contrasted a national 1 per cent fall in meat cattle herd numbers to 22.3 million.
National dairy herds numbers fell by 2 per cent and national sheep flocks also fell by 1 per cent.
Ms Bins said the value of Australia's livestock disposals continued to increase and had risen 10 per cent to 20.6 billion Australia-wide since 2014-15.
"Beef was again the largest contributor to this rise, despite fewer animals heading to the saleyards, with strong price rises both domestically and internationally," she said.
Water usage over the period rose from 62 megalitres in 2014 -15 to 97 megalitres in 2015-16.
While the ACT has the largest increase in water usage in what was a warm and dry year with low rainfall, the ACT used the least amount of water of any Australian jurisdiction for agricultural purposes.
ACT Catchment Management and Water Policy executive manager Matt Kendall said agricultural water use was a small proportion of total consumption and the increased use by the sector did not constitute a surge.
In 2014-15 total water use for the ACT was 49,829 mega litres, according to figures from the Bureau of Meteorology national water account.
"You can get an idea it is 62 megalitres out of a total 49,000 megalitres, so that's equivalent to about 0.12 per cent used by agriculture," he said.
"You are talking about a very small proportion that's increasing. Water use does vary from year to year based on climatic factors, primarily rainfall and evaporation and the agricultural sector would vary more based on those drivers."