BY: ALEX MURRAY
A public forum was held this morning at the Wine Country Motor Inn with discussions of the government's proposed production and rural development policy and its protections for farmers.
The proposal is aiming to support sustainable agriculture and changes to planning particularly those requiring development consent.
As Parliamentary Secretary for the Hunter, Scot Macdonald says, "Primary production and managing rural development is vitally important to the Hunter."
Although, the NSW Farmers Association is calling on the government to consider the restrictions placed on rural farmers in the development of the proposal and to have an understanding of their working conditions.
Hunter Regional Manager of NSW Farmers, David Banham says: "The message is loud and clear from the people in the room today that there's still work to be done and it needs to be done properly."
"There was certainly discussion around the fragmentation of agricultural land and the minimum lot size which could be potentially changed or present issues."
"It's a big change from the existing environmental planning policies we've got...including problems where certain farms won't be requiring development consent to go ahead."
"We've identified some of the issues early on...but we're always looking for positive outcomes from these changes, we just need to need to ensure the planning department understand farming and the issues around it so they can create the right policies."
