Macadamias, mangoes, guavas, lychees, custard apples, blueberries, pawpaw, as well as coffee and an endless variety of bush foods, herbs and vegetables are all grown locally on north coast land.
Our rich volcanic soil and sub-tropical climate makes the area ideal for growing crops and trees. As climate change presents us with an unpredictable future, the protection of agricultural land and soil becomes even more relevant and perhaps urgent.
We have many local industries that depend on farmland to produce their products; for example Brookfarm, the family-run macadamia products company, now exporting internationally. Salumi Australia, is another local success story, a company that prides itself on ‘ethical and sustainable farming practices’. And another local producer, a Possum Creek finger-lime grower, now supplying product across the country and also has plans to export.
Each of these businesses is dependent on good quality farmland to produce their products, and the future growth of (hopefully many) similar industries demands that we protect agricultural land.
Given this need for long term, sustainable development and intergenerational equity, it is disappointing and short sighted that representatives of these three businesses recently spoke in support of a development on prime agricultural land that proposes to cover at least 10 acres with enormous factories and a 500-lot carpark at Bangalow.
It is not that the concept of a facility to assist manufacturing and export is in itself wrong; it’s just that this particular site is the wrong place to do it.
If the development were to proceed, the land would be lost to agriculture forever. At the same public meeting 20 members of the Bangalow community spoke against the proposal.
To sacrifice good quality farmland for an industrial development would go against planning guidelines and basic common sense. Industrial estates can go elsewhere, while rural land suitable for growing crops and trees is a valuable asset to the shire – and the region.
We have soils that have been declared significant for the whole state and a generation of young farmers and small crop farming may well be the foundation of new economic growth in our region. We have a ready market in our burgeoning and popular food industry. Our region has so much to offer in terms of agriculture and horticulture into the future – and so many opportunities.
Let’s hope intelligence and the precautionary principle prevails and the relevant planning body refuses to allow a proposal that would sacrifice our prime agricultural land.
Sue Taylor, Bangalow
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