Rural Planning

Local government planners, state regional planners, farmers or policy makers, should consider the following eight principles to achieve a healthy agricultural sector at the regional and local level.

1. Recognise the importance of agriculture to a sustainable regional economy and urban communities by including references to agriculture in the vision and objectives of planning documents.
2. Identify and protect the natural resource base for agriculture by defining areas of suitable land and excluding incompatible land uses, particularly urban or rural-residential uses, mining and petroleum extraction, permanent plantations and infrastructure corridors, from these and other areas important for local or specialised agricultural production.
3. Avoid fragmentation of agricultural land and other pressures of urban growth by setting appropriate lot sizes in agricultural areas consistent with the economics of local and regional production systems.
4. Land use conflict
   1. Avoid land use conflict and provide for compatible rural uses by defining areas for compatible agricultural production, particularly intensive animal industry* and intensive horticulture*, preventing the location of incompatible uses in and adjacent to agricultural production areas and where necessary requiring buffer areas between incompatible uses. Manage existing land use conflict by giving preference to pre-existing lawful and lawfully operating agricultural land uses when dealing with complaints.
   2. Encourage sustainable land and water use and practices by promoting agricultural production on suitable land and promoting sustainable land and water use practices.
5. Encourage value-adding and diversification in agriculture by recognising the complexity and diversity of modern agricultural enterprises and providing for efficient development approval processes for small scale tourism activities and on-farm handling, processing and sale of agricultural produce.
6. Provide and maintain needed and efficient transport, energy and water infrastructure to support agriculture by identifying and planning for critical and strategic rural infrastructure that supports primary production and access to processing or supply chain services.
7. Provide economic, employment and social support services for agriculture in compact, self-contained rural towns and villages by providing for the growth of these settlements within clearly defined urban boundaries.
8. Protect the multiple values of agricultural land by recognising the ecosystem services provided by and attractiveness of agricultural production areas for tourism and avoid land use elements that would reduce these values.

Farmers and land managers are affected by a wide range of regulations and legislation that affect their operations or development proposals. QFF has produced a guide to the environmental management and planning legislation and how these affect primary producers.

Information is available for farmers and others involved in the agricultural sector on environment and planning legislation, and regulations and policies that affect the way they carry out their businesses. It does NOT include legal requirements affecting animal welfare, workplace health and safety or food safety.

Legislation needs to be understood in the light of common law rights and obligations of landholders. The basic right of a landholder at common law is to use their property as they wish as long as they do not interfere with their neighbours and comply with the requirements of legislation. Landholders have a duty of care not to cause foreseeable harm to their neighbours. This duty applies to the activities that landholders undertake of their own choice but also applies in respect to taking action to manage the hazard from such things as pest plants and animals or fire that come naturally to the property. In addition to the common law duty of care, there are also statutory duties such as the duty of care to the land in the Land Act 1994 for occupiers of State land, the general environmental duty in the Environment Protection Act 1994 and the duty to not harm Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage under the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 and the Torres Strait Islander Cultural Heritage Act 2003.

As the level of government responsible for the preparation and implementation of local planning schemes and strategic land use plans, local governments are the most important player in the planning for agriculture in rural areas. QFF has prepared a comprehensive set of data on agricultural production in each Queensland local government area to assist in the understanding of local agricultural industries and their contribution to local economies and employment.

Data collected in the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2009-10 Agricultural Resource Management survey showed that approximately 52 per cent of Australia’s total land area was managed by agricultural businesses. Queensland had the largest land area managed by agriculture business, approximately 83 percent of the state.

A regional breakdown of agricultural businesses and land use is available based on data from Australian Bureau of Statistics, Land Management and Farming in Australia, 2009-10, cat. no. 4627.0.

The most detailed information on agricultural land use and land use potential was produced by the Queensland Agricultural Land Audit in 2014. This project, completed by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, used data from the Queensland Land Use Monitoring Program (QLUMP) and available land resource mapping to document, for each region, the current and potential land suitable for a range of agricultural production systems.

The State of Queensland Agriculture report, released in June 2014 by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, is a comprehensive statement of the trends in agriculture production and an analysis of the economic, resource, infrastructure and social factors influencing the future growth of agriculture.