The Harwood and Broadwater Sugar Mills recently hosted a number of local schools for a Schools Open Day.

With the sugar industry being a major local employer and contributor to the economy of northern NSW – Sunshine Sugar set about engaging the next generation of workers, thinkers and leaders to see and learn first-hand how this important local industry works and the value it creates for the people of the Northern Rivers.

Around 250 students from across the Clarence Valley were welcomed by the operations manager before embarking on a tour through the site. The Harwood Sugar Mill is the oldest continuously operating sugar mill in Australia.

Students were shown the sugar making process from the cane trucks tipping freshly harvested cane into the shredder, through the milling train and all the way to the raw sugar shed. With some 70,000 tonnes of sugar in storage at the Harwood raw sugar shed, the students were treated to a very ‘sweet’ tour.

At Broadwater, some 120 students from schools across the Richmond Valley got to see their local sugar mill in action. Broadwater is the largest mill in NSW, crushing cane from around 15,000 Hectares of surrounding cane farms.