Farmers back ag-land protection
STATE Government support for protecting prime agricultural land from development has strong support from the agricultural sector, although Gympie Regional Council's Planning Committee chairman Ian Petersen says a lot of near-Gympie Rural-zoned land is far from “prime.”
He is hoping for some flexibility to be left to councils to assess development proposals, despite the prescriptive “no-subdivision” approach of the draft Wide Bay-Burnett Regional Plan.
Goomeri grazier and president of the Queensland farm lobby group AgForce, John Cotter says the Queensland Government's move to protect prime cropping areas from mining and urban development is “a step in the right direction”.
He welcomed the release of a discussion paper on managing key food producing land.
