page_title: Darling Downs
section_title: Meat
hierarchical_section_title: Darling Downs / Industry / Meat
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of silos at Purrawunda, Queensland, Australia.
context_page_description: The Darling Downs is a farming region on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range in southern Queensland, Australia. The Downs are to the west of South East Queensland and are one of the major regions of Queensland. The name was generally applied to an area approximating to that of the Condamine River catchment upstream of Condamine township but is now applied to a wider region comprising the Southern Downs, Western Downs, Toowoomba and Goondiwindi local authority areas. The name Darling Downs was given in 1827 by Allan Cunningham, the first European explorer to reach the area and recognises the then Governor of New South Wales, Ralph Darling.
  The region has developed a strong and diverse agricultural industry largely due to the extensive areas of vertosols, particularly black vertosols, of moderate to high fertility and available water capacity. Manufacturing and mining, particularly coal mining are also important, and coal seam gas extraction experienced significant growth in the decade to 2016.
context_section_description: The area is home to Australia's largest concentration of feedlots. In 2010, two abattoirs at Pittsworth and Killarney owned by Dudley Leitch were closed. Several other plants in the area were also closed leaving the remaining meat processor at Yangan in high demand. By late 2012, the industry was recovering with smaller processing facilities at Crows Nest and Inglewood opening. In 2014, the Oakey Abattoir which is the fourth largest meat processing plant in Australia, launched an environmental initiative to extract green energy biogas from its waste water streams. It was the first ever use of a covered lagoon to treat effluent.
caption: Grain silos at Purrawunda, 2014
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