By 2050 the global population is set to grow to 9 billion, 2 billion more than today. Fundamentally, feeding another one and half China’s will present challenges, but it will also create exciting and lucrative opportunities. Queensland agriculture is in a prime position to capitalise on a burgeoning Asian middle class that is increasingly demanding the high quality and clean food, fibre and foliage we produce.
While there is much debate around how we realise the dream of turning Australia into the ‘food bowl’ or, more realistically the ‘delicatessen of Asia’, there is no doubting the fundamental requirement to preserve and intensify the nation’s limited prime agricultural land.
Prime agricultural land is a rare and irreplaceable asset that must be protected, particularly in a continent like Australia. While no loud public voices disagree with this, there remains a disconnection between the rhetoric and actions from our leaders and government, which can result in negative, irreversible outcomes.
The Queensland Farmers’ Federation (QFF) is serious about developing a state-based approach to properly addressing planning and protection of our prime agricultural land. As a sector, we must maximize the opportunities and profits for our farmers, which will in turn support the communities that benefit from the employment and economic-flow on from agricultural production and processing. The ultimate limit to being able to do this is access to prime land and water.
The current planning framework has become convoluted and unnecessarily complicated, and it is not delivering the best outcomes for land use. An example of this inconsistent and inadequate approach to protecting prime agricultural land includes urban encroachment, rezoning and more recently, the construction of large-scale solar energy projects in regional areas. While these projects benefit local and national communities by creating jobs and positively decarbonizing our electricity generation, several have come at the expense of prime agricultural land and food production.
Examples of the often-avoidable choice being made between prime agricultural production and large scale solar developments are already here. A Chinchilla melon farmer is grappling with a proposed solar development on his neighbour’s land, only metres from paddocks used for horticulture production. Large scale solar developments in the Burdekin have taken highly productive cane farming land out of production undermining the viability of the local sugar mill, putting those jobs at risk. And the Central Highlands Local Government too is struggling to manage the influx of large scale solar the potential threat to existing productive agricultural land and the investment made in irrigation infrastructure.
A ‘Large-Scale Solar State Code and Planning Guideline’ is currently in development but a Code is needed to deliver state-wide consistency and to fill the gaps in expertise required to make informed decisions around protecting prime agricultural land at local government level. The existing regulatory planning framework must be strengthened and enforced to ensure high quality agricultural land is protected, after all we are not making any more of it.
As the demands on agriculture and agricultural (food) production continue to grow, we will need to become smarter in how we manage and safeguard our prime agricultural land and the valuable infrastructure built to enhance it and maximise productivity. Without the right land to begin with it would be all but impossible for our sector to maintain the food security that is taken for granted domestically, or take advantage of the exciting and lucrative export opportunities.