Primary Producers SA, Grain Producers SA and Livestock SA slam Peter Malinauskas urban growth plan

Peter Malinauskas’s plan to replace prime food production land with suburbia has sparked an angry response from farmers.

The state’s peak farming bodies have slammed the State Government’s new housing plan as sacrificing crops for concrete.

Primary Producers SA, Grain Producers SA and Livestock SA are all outraged at the plan to hand over some of the state’s best food producing land to developers.

“The government is now asking the South Australian parliament to change food protection zones that were set by the parliament itself to hand over cropping land for housing,” Grain Producers SA chief Brad Perry said.

“If this can be done so easily, what will productive cropping land be sacrificed for next?”

“Grain producers in areas of the Adelaide Plains, such as at Roseworthy, have raised concerns about their future given the continued encroachment and challenges of farming next to new housing estates.

Grain Producers SA chief Brad Perry.

Mr Perry said the grain industry was the largest agricultural commodity in the state.

“Instead of putting policy mechanisms to grow the industry, there’s more pressure to use productive cropping land than ever before,” he said.

“Planning policy is a balance but what will taking out more productive grain land that’s been cropped for decades cost future generations and the economy?”

Premier Peter Malinauskas this week unveiled a plan to overturn greenfield housing development bans at Roseworthy, Two Wells, Murray Bridge, Victor Harbour and Goolwa.

The government pinpointed these areas housing growth hotspots in a draft 30-year Greater Adelaide Regional Plan released last September – its centrepiece was boosting the metropolitan population to 2.2m and adding more than 300,000 homes.

But the land parcels are within Environment and Food Production Areas (EFPA), which would be varied by the proposed legislation to allow an ongoing supply of development-ready land for the next 30 years.

The government said the proposed changes to the EFPA for housing represent less than one per cent of agricultural land in the Greater Adelaide area.

Livestock SA chairwoman Gillian Fennell agreed that swapping crops for concrete was not the answer.

“South Australian agriculture feeds and clothes people living in our state and nation and is an integral part of global food security,” she said.

“Livestock SA is concerned that within a few short years the government’s rhetoric has gone from acknowledging our food-producing and agricultural areas “assets to be protected” to simply house blocks.”

“The Environment and Food Production Areas (EFPAs) were created to safeguard South Australia’s most arable and productive land from urban sprawl.”

Primary Producers SA chairman professor Simon Maddocks said he was also concerned about growing competition for water resources.

“Can we really support reform that, at its worst, would push more intensive agriculture into more and more marginal regions in the long-term?” he said.

“This would drive up input requirements to sustain productivity and drive up the costs of production, and thus the cost of food, even further.”

Originally published as Primary Producers SA, Grain Producers SA and Livestock SA slam Peter Malinauskas urban growth plan