Tuesday, 27 May 2025

Environment and Planning Committee

Inquiry into Securing the Victorian Food Supply

Tim READ (Brunswick) (11:28): I rise to speak on the Legislative Assembly’s Environment and Planning Committee’s November 2024 report, Securing the Victorian Food Supply. This committee was asked last year to inquire into securing the Victorian food supply in the context of urban sprawl and the impact of population growth on the farming industry and arable land.

It is well understood that human settlement for many centuries has been on river deltas, where rivers flow into the sea. These are areas with the best water supply and, due to repeated flooding, the most fertile land. And Australia of course is famous for its urban sprawl. Over the past century we have seen Melbourne grow and some of Victoria’s most fertile land put under bitumen and concrete and turned into suburbia. This is a phenomenon that is occurring around the world and has been written about for at least half a century. Some of our most fertile peri-urban farmland has been subdivided and developed, and I am not just talking about around Melbourne now but around Geelong, the Surf Coast, Bendigo and Ballarat.

I want to read to you a couple of findings from this inquiry. Finding 13 says farmland next to Melbourne’s urban growth boundary:

… is being marketed, purchased and ‘banked’ for its possible increased value if the land is rezoned for development. Local governments may experience pressure to rezone land.

That is a masterpiece of understatement. Finding 14 says:

Land banking may result in agricultural land being left idle, reducing the productivity of Melbourne’s green wedges and creating pest issues for neighbouring properties. Uncertainty about the future of agricultural land in these areas also discourages farmers from investing in their businesses.

For a long time – for decades, in fact – the most profitable crop a peri-urban farmer could grow was houses. That is, if you could sell your dairy farm or whatever it was to a developer and turn it into suburbia, you were made. You had made your fortune, and no-one really questioned that. But we understand now that this is an ongoing threat to food production and to food security in the state. While most of our food is exported, which is a comforting observation and people often assume that they need look no further, we found out – for example, during COVID – that we have narrow and few supply chains getting food into our shops.

I should also point out that peri-urban development and suburban sprawl are not the only threats to farming, but it was a narrowly focused inquiry and that was what this inquiry was looking into in particular. It is good news, then, that the Planning for Melbourne’s Green Wedges and Agricultural Land project is strengthening the planning controls for green wedge areas and peri-urban agricultural land within 100 kilometres of metropolitan Melbourne. This report contains a raft of recommendations to prevent further subdivision of lot sizes in peri-urban farmland, and I strongly endorse these. I call upon the government to make necessary changes to planning legislation to ensure that Melbourne’s urban boundary is finally fixed and fixed for good – and not just Melbourne but Geelong, the Surf Coast, Bendigo and Ballarat as well. It is important to point out that the failure of government to limit urban sprawl does not just threaten agriculture, but it will also condemn our lowest income residents to living in remote dormitory suburbs that are only reachable by private transport. I recommend that members look at these recommendations and study the government’s response, which is overdue, to ensure that these recommendations are acted upon.

I should also point out that there are different types of agriculture that do not all necessarily need the same level of protection. I would not, for example, regard horse breeding and hobby farms as things that need the protection of, say, market gardens and other food production. And not even all food production is equal. Let us face it, we get a lot more calories or kilograms of food from a hectare of vegetables or fruit than we do from a hectare of livestock grazing. The other point to make is that climate change is a major threat to agricultural security and to food security, and I urge the government to urgently model current and potential shocks to the food system as a result of our rapidly changing climate and to integrate this modelling into any actions undertaken through the Victorian food security strategy. I will leave it there.