Through the Mill
We have been through the mill today, literally and physically. We went to the Farleigh Sugar Mill here in Mackay in Central Queensland and were shown how the harvested sugar cane arrives in the long cane trains at the weigh station and then is tipped into the crusher for the beginning of the process where the liquid sugar is pumped away for processing and the remaining fibrous material, known as bagasse, is kept and used as fuel in the mill boiler furnaces. Following this it goes into a boiler with lime juice to clarify it and the clear juice runs off from the top of the clarifier and the muddy juice extracted from the bottom and mixed with the fine bagasse to make fertilizer. The clear juice is concentrated to a syrup by evaporation under vacuum in the evaporators then it is boiled again in vacuum pans and more water evaporated. When the syrup is sufficiently concentrated, raw sugar crystals grow. When the crystals reach a predetermined size, the mixture of syrup is released through the bottom of the pans. The syrup is separated from the raw crystals in centrifuges which spin at high speeds. This is done several times and the liquid that spins off is now molasses which is used as stock feed or to make alcohol. Finally, the sugar crystals are dried by being tumbled through a stream of air in a rotation drum and transferred to short term storage in bulk bins. That’s the process explained briefly.
The factory was quite warm inside and this is winter; I would hate to work there as the weather warms up since you have to wear long sleeves, long pants, goggles, hairnets and earmuffs. The sugar milling season goes through until December. Toward the end of the tour the floor was rather sticky and there was a strong molasses smell. Before they take you through the mill, they show a video explaining how sugar is such an important product in Australia both for us to use here and as an export. The statistics are pretty impressive and it sure explains why we are seeing so many cane fields up here in Queensland. I don’t have the export figures to hand but it is a big export. Also, the number of farms supplying the Farleigh mill is 395 and the number of farms supplying all 4 Mackay mills is 1540. When you see the fields of cane along the way you realize that sugar production is the life force up here for many people. Actually, we saw a sign saying Mackay is the “sugar and coal capital” which is something we didn’t realize but apparently there are coal mines and there is a coal terminal (dock or wharf) at Hay Point.
We had to stop on our
travels today for one of those cane trains to cross and it took forever! They are very slow and, as I said before, very, very long. It was interesting to see one fully loaded and then to hear how they go straight to the mills after being loaded by the farmers into the truck with their special barcode which has been assigned to them by the mill. This way the mill knows what each farm has supplied and can pay them appropriately. They need to be processed within about sixteen hours of being harvested we were told so I guess the system has to be very efficient. The rail system is all controlled and monitored on computers so that they know exactly what is happening with each train and its load. It’s far more high tech than I would ever have imagined actually.
Tomorrow we go to a farm and see it from that end of the business.
The factory was quite warm inside and this is winter; I would hate to work there as the weather warms up since you have to wear long sleeves, long pants, goggles, hairnets and earmuffs. The sugar milling season goes through until December. Toward the end of the tour the floor was rather sticky and there was a strong molasses smell. Before they take you through the mill, they show a video explaining how sugar is such an important product in Australia both for us to use here and as an export. The statistics are pretty impressive and it sure explains why we are seeing so many cane fields up here in Queensland. I don’t have the export figures to hand but it is a big export. Also, the number of farms supplying the Farleigh mill is 395 and the number of farms supplying all 4 Mackay mills is 1540. When you see the fields of cane along the way you realize that sugar production is the life force up here for many people. Actually, we saw a sign saying Mackay is the “sugar and coal capital” which is something we didn’t realize but apparently there are coal mines and there is a coal terminal (dock or wharf) at Hay Point.
We had to stop on our
travels today for one of those cane trains to cross and it took forever! They are very slow and, as I said before, very, very long. It was interesting to see one fully loaded and then to hear how they go straight to the mills after being loaded by the farmers into the truck with their special barcode which has been assigned to them by the mill. This way the mill knows what each farm has supplied and can pay them appropriately. They need to be processed within about sixteen hours of being harvested we were told so I guess the system has to be very efficient. The rail system is all controlled and monitored on computers so that they know exactly what is happening with each train and its load. It’s far more high tech than I would ever have imagined actually.Tomorrow we go to a farm and see it from that end of the business.
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