Farming on Melbourne's urban fringe has never been tougher - with land tax, biosecurity issues and those opposed to agricultural practices adding additional pressures on people seeking to grow food or raise livestock.
The government has just released its long-awaited Green Wedges and Agricultural Land policy, containing 20 actions it says will protect farms in a 100 kilometre radius of the city.
The former Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) came up with the 20 actions, after a May 2020 consultation paper proposed 46 options and 12 design elements to improve protection of green wedge and agricultural land.
Consultation began in 2019, with two rounds of public consultation saw the department receive 879 submissions, but finalisation of the policy was put on hold for several years during COVID-19.
Among the 20 action items being put in place by the government are and update of agricultural planning policy, to provide what the government said was protection for agricultural land and strengthening "right to farm" provisions.
It also includes a prohibition on building a house on parcels of land of less than 40 hectares, within farming and rural activity planning zones.
Local government planners will also be given more guidance when assessing permit applications, through the establishment of a new Planning Practice Note for agricultural areas.
Planning practice notes provide advice about the operation of the Victoria Planning Provisions (VPP) and planning schemes.
The Planning Policy Framework will also be amended to encourage appropriate development in rural areas, to cut down the potential for conflict.
Victorian Farmers Federation Cardinia branch president Tony Morgan, Orchard End Farm, Bayles said he had been "underwhelmed" after reading the 20 action items, contained in the new policy.
He and wife Sue run a 40 cow breeding herd and blueberry and garlic farm, turning off weaners at 10-12 months old, or running them through to 500 kilograms.
They farm 54 hectares, in a mix of family owned land and lease blocks.
"For the amount of effort and resources that went into all the data captured and its analysis, a 20 point action list, where many of those actions have little teeth and value, is not doing a whole for protecting agricultural land," he said.
One of the 20 action items was the banning of data centres in green wedge and in agricultural areas, which made "zero sense".
"How many data centres have we got out here?" he said.
"I presume there is one somewhere, within 100 kilometres of Melbourne, and now they are not going to allow any more - big deal."
Many of the options were "reviewing guidelines" and appeared to contain few teeth, he said.
"Have they delivered an all singing, all dancing, protect agricultural land in perpetuity policy? I don't think they have," Mr Morgan said.
Several of the action points points focused on irrigation, he said.
Mr Morgan said there was high value land in Cardinia, which could benefit from irrigation, but there appeared to be no protection for it.
"There is the Dalmore 'golden triangle', where they grow all the asparagus and broccolini - just about anything can grow down there - but there is no mention of it in the policy," he said.
"It is one of the areas, in my view, that is significantly under risk because of the urban creep coming out from Berwick and Clyde."
The imminent closure of Victorian Livestock Exchange at Pakenham was an example of such "urban creep" affecting infrastructure.
"Once VLE goes, the service industries come under pressure - right next door to VLE is a reasonably large Elders outlet, if Elders aren't selling cattle in Pakenham any more, why would they bother running an outlet there?" he said.
He said he was also concerned about the development of Melbourne's second airport, slated for land close to his property.
"There's 1210ha of green wedge land that is going to go when they put in south-east airport - it's highly productive land, there are vegetable farms, and mostly beef and dairy," he said.
"The production of that land is going to be zero, I am not anti-airport, but I don't think anything in those 20 action points is going to protect agricultural land."
He said the land could turn off 1000 to 2000 tonnes of beef a year, which would no longer be produced if the airport went ahead.
"Remnant farmers"
On Melbourne's northern fringe, Alan McKenzie grows wheat and canola, while raising cattle at Bulla, within earshot of the airport, in the city of Hume.
"You've heard about remnant vegetation, well we are remnant farmers," he said.
Mr McKenzie said one of the biggest issues was kangaroo control.
"We are going to become unpaid park rangers, because kangaroo culling is being stopped," he said.
"Some of the developers have signed conservation covenants, which prohibit any control of kangaroos on their land."
He said cropping and livestock production were both hard hit by kangaroos, as they ate new growth and damaged fences.
Mr McKenzie said there was a false assumption farmers on the fringe "were making a lot of money out of farming in and around Melbourne - it could not be further from the truth".
"The vested interests subdivided the Cranbourne's of this world, where you could nearly eat the soil and they produced vegetables 12 months of the year," he said.
Authorities were now trying to save what they deemed was productive land in the north and north-west of Melbourne. he said.
"They wouldn't know what productive land is and they need to go and take a course in agriculture," he said.
"Farmers recognise it as being low productivity and low return - all it does is have a massive weed burden on it."
He said the Hume city council was now "wondering what can happen with its rural area, because it doesn't make enough money to even maintain itself".
"The soils are poor, they are not suitable for irrigation - we have, at best, 80 millimetres of topsoil, then into heavy clay and probably solid rock, within a metre of the surface," he said.
Over the last few years, he said the area he had under production had dropped from 1000 to 240 hectares, all attributable to land he once share farmed being lost to housing.
"What they (the authorities) are saving it for is to run kangaroos, to put water mains through, to put power lines and roads through - it is being held over for public utilities," he said.
"When they say it is being held for agricultural use, it is just a notional classification."
Biosecurity risks
While it's kangaroos for Mr McKenzie, stray goats and pigs, with their inherent biosecurity risks, are a key issue for Christine Ross, Eastwind Rare Breeds farm, Macclesfield
Ms Ross runs a small herd of Large Black Pigs and said biosecurity education must be part of any new rules around protection of agricultural land.
"Most people don't understand biosecurity rules, or don't give a toss," Ms Ross said.
In the last week a pig was seen wandering around the area; it was believed to be the same one which entered the Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve last year.
"Last week, six goats wandered into someone's place at Wandin, and several people sighted them as they headed towards the Warburton Highway," Ms Ross said.
"They may have been dropping Johne's disease, or barbers pole worm, or anything else in people's properties along the way.
"Most people don't seem to understand once you have Barbers Pole on your property, and your animal picks it up, you are in for a horrendous ride until you can keep your paddocks clean for two years."
She said was "criminal" that people had no understanding of biosecurity protocols.
Ms Ross has recently been appointed to a Yarra Ranges council rural advisory committee and said hoped to improve awareness about biosecurity.
Peninsula Fresh Organics co-owner Wayne Shields, who has properties at Baxter and Barham, on the Murray River, said the changes were probably a "good thing for everybody" in the long term.
"We don't want to overcapitalise the land, as soon as you start putting houses on it, you can't afford to use it for agriculture," he said.
He applauded the government's encouraging water authorities to make more use of recycled water.
"But you look at the recycled water that went out to Clyde, 25 years ago, well that land has gone to housing now," he said.
"'It wasn't a real good way to spend public money."
He said he felt the planning processes introduced by the Mornington Peninsula Shire were "probably a good model" for councils to adopt.
"To have a bit of state government backing behind it is good - it gives councils a bit more strength, a bit more backbone," he said.
But fellow Mornington Peninsula vegetable grower Richard Hawkes, Boneo, said it did not appear to solve issues arising from people living near farmers and complaining about agricultural practices.
"There are a lot of people who move next to a farm, then, all of a sudden want all farming activities to cease - there is obviously pressure to make sure land is not all going to housing, but that's one component," Mr Hawkes said.
He said a "carrot and stick" approach was required - "the more intensive the farm use, the lower the land tax that is paid and the lower the intensity of the activity, the more the tax that's paid - that actually encourages people to farm their land."
Currently nothing was discouraging people from buying land and locking it up, he said.
He wanted to expand, "but there is no-one knocking on my door asking me to farm, because they don't need to".
There should be more regular checks on such things as farm management plans to ensure land was being used for agricultural production.
Andrew Miller
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
