In reply to Sue Taylor’s and Ean Jones’ letter dated 13/09/17 who were responding to Dorothy’s letter in The Echo from 06/09/17 I would like to provide the community with some facts:
I have resided in the Byron Shire for over 40 years. My finger-lime business (Australian Finger lime Caviar) was established in the area over 10 years ago and has expanded in cooperation with nine local growers.
Subject to the expansion of the finger lime and the native food industry in this area, we will continue to take on more local growers, when exporting fresh fruit (which we have already been doing for 10 years) we unfortunately have to travel to the Tweed area to deliver our fruit for packing.
The ‘Food Hub’ area for development is zoned RU1 Primary Production under the Byron Local Environmental Plan. This zone allows Rural Industrial Buildings such as is required for the ‘Food Hub’.
The problem with a number of the objectors is they are near sighted and do not understand that the Australian Bureau of Statistics show a decline of agricultural output from the local area since 2005. Would those aforementioned prefer Australian businesses not to reinvest in local agribusinesses?
‘The Food Hub’ will support local food growers and food manufacturers which already supply the domestic and international market.
It would be morally corrupt not to see local Aussie businesses who pay tax, reinvest and most of all hopefully continue to employ locals in the area to reverse the decline that government statistics have shown.
We do not want to see local agribusiness shift out of the area, we also should not want to see homes built opposite and so close to an already established industrial estate which would further exacerbate problems.
As far as agricultural land for production, 64 acres is not large enough to run a sustainable amount of cattle and detrimental to a fruit and veggie production which requires high volumes of irrigation! Good luck obtaining a water licence from any creek these days.
Sheryl Rennie, Bangalow
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