Views now being sought on Melbourne's Green Wedge protection

The government is seeking community feedback on stronger planning controls to protect Melbourne's green wedges and agricultural land permanently.

Planning minister Richard Wynne said the important green areas, located within 100 kilometres of Melbourne, supported thousands of jobs in conservation, tourism and agriculture and were also crucial for food production.

"We're protecting these important green areas to support thousands of jobs while protecting our food supply and improving Melbourne's liveability," Mr Wynne said.

"Green wedges are crucial to our growth and prosperity and these planning controls will make sure they are protected from overdevelopment so they can continue to provide for current and future generations."

Plan-It Rural's Annemaree Docking, Kilmore, said she felt the broader conversation, on the protection of strategic agricultural land, was a good one.

"We need to encourage people to be a part of that, so we can align our land use planning regulations with community expectations," Ms Docking said.

She said current restrictive rules on Green Wedges, restricting farm gate shops to selling produce grown or made on, or adjacent to the property, made things difficult, mainly when it came to aggregating local produce for sale.

"We saw how important those small farms were to the food security of Melbourne, through COVID," Ms Docking said.

"It's about connecting the community back to farms, and the local landscape that feeds them, and ensuring farmers within that landscape remain viable.

"When you are a small scale farmer, selling produce at wholesale prices, is the quickest way I know to go broke."

She said farmers in the peri-urban area needed to "create connections" with their communities.

"Our farmers' markets scene is thriving, and the farmgate is just another reflection of a community that is looking for an alternative way to source their food.

"The centralised system, that separates the community from the people that feed them is becoming less and less acceptable, to the broader community.

"The nature of primary production is uncertain enough - we don't need the regulatory framework, to create additional uncertainty for farmers."

Mr Wynne said as Melbourne's population increased, proposed planning changes would better protect green wedges from overdevelopment while keeping farms on the city's urban fringes working and feeding the city.

Melbourne's twelve green wedges cover the areas just outside Melbourne's Urban Growth Boundary and provide an essential break between the intensive urban development along the city's growth corridors.

These zones, which are protected by legislation, include significant conservation and cultural heritage sites, tourism and recreational opportunities such as our renowned food and wine regions, natural resources and critical infrastructure that supports the operation of the city.

The government is also proposing to permanently protect peri-urban agricultural land that lies beyond Melbourne's green wedge zones but still within 100 kilometres of the CBD.

These are predominantly rural areas with small townships.

Mr Wynne said the importance of this land would only increase in the future, as climate change impacted where crops were grown, and the green wedge and peri-urban areas were relied upon more to grow food.

The pandemic has forced consultation to be conducted online only but the time has been extended and will now run for 10 weeks.

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