Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) president Tammi Jonas has called for urgent clarification of intensive farming laws, after another adverse ruling on the practice.
Colin Pace and Marion McDonnell lost their application for a permit for a free range piggery, at Baddaginnie, when the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) upheld a decision to refuse an intensive animal husbandry permit.
“We have requested a moratorium be placed on the application of ‘cease and desist orders’, where there are adverse findings against established farms - where the dispute is around the definition of 'intensive' - until this review is complete,” Ms Jonas said.
“There is an urgent need to address the flaws in the planning scheme, especially around the definition of 'intensive'.”
AFSA represents small-scale producers and Ms Jonas said the loss was another terrible blow for free-range farmers.
“In Colin and Marion's case, they couldn't meet the buffer zone requirements designed to protect people from the negative impact on local amenity of confining thousands of animals in sheds, which I imagine very few farms under 100 acres would be able to meet, and nor should they be required to,” Ms Jonas said.
“People's livelihoods are at stake, and some have already lost them or sought refuge in shires where they can get back to doing what they love – farming,” Ms Jonas said.
Ms Jonas said the report of the Animal Industries Advisory Committee was delivered to the ministers for Agriculture and Panning in late April.
“Since then, Happy Valley Free Range and now Colin & Marion have been forced to cease free-range pig farming,” she said.
“Meanwhile, a feedlot goat dairy with a proposed 18,500 goats has been approved outside of Geelong, in spite of 447 objections from the local community.”
Premier Daniel Andrews told last week’s Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) conference the government was still working through the committee’s recommendations, and would not be rushed into a decision.
“We will have more to say about that soon, not in a week or two, but soon,” Mr Andrews said. “I think you can make quick decisions, which aren't very good.
“We did see that a few years ago - we need a better system, it will just take a little longer to get there.”
VCAT members upheld a decision by the Benalla Rural City Council to refuse an intensive animal husbandry permit for the Baddaginnie farm.
Michael Nelthorpe and Greg Sharpley upheld the decision, on the grounds intensive agricultural practices needed to be “appropriately located and industry buffer distances and standards are met”.
The tribunal members found the applicants had not persuaded them the proposed buffer distances were appropriate.
“We have found environmental management plan (EMP) lacks rigour and detail that we consider is essential to satisfy us that the piggery will operate without unreasonable adverse impacts on adjoining properties and the environment,” the members said.
“We consider that it does not satisfactorily address issues of odour, nutrient balance and stormwater.”
Mr Pace and Ms McDonnell run between 200-400 pigs on the 28ha farm for the past five years.
VCAT relied on an earlier decision in which a 8.8ha Wandin North free-range piggery was found to be an intensive farm, because it imported more than half of the animals’ nutritional requirements.
Wangaratta smallgoods producer Felix Gamze said the closure of the farm meant one less supplier, for his business.
“I have one less free range pig grower now,” Mr Gamze, of Gamze Smokehouse said.
“I was his only customer – we are growing and he was growing with us.”
Mr Gamze said he wondering what further ramifications would flow from the decision.
”How long does it take to work these things out ? There are going to be more and more people moving onto smaller acreage and all of a sudden they are in a buffer zone.
“I have another supplier, I am not completely reliant on one, but I am looking for other suppliers and hopefully the same thing doesn’t happen to the next poor beggar.”
