Because we seldom suffer from a shortage of staple food some have become blase in allowing areas of our most valuable and productive soil to be buried beneath concrete and tarseal and potentially millions of hectares of trees planted on our hill country.
This week Farmers Weekly begins an investigation on that productive land squeeze to determine the likely impact and solutions. We talk this week to Papamoa farmer Andrew Dovaston, a second-generation Bay of Plenty farmer, who is watching Tauranga city encroach ever nearer to his Bell Road property. Like many farmers, Dovaston is caught between an intergenerational connection to his farm and the insatiable appetite for land for housing. Others we have spoken to talk about the pressures of living in the shadow of the tourist and lifestyle mecca that is Queenstown and the ever-expanding Auckland city onto our best horticulture land.
Distance from a main centre does not preclude the demand for land, with two Government policies – the one billion tree planting programme and carbon neutral 2050 – potentially meaning the replacement of livestock on up to three million hectares of hill country. To be charitable, debate on this broader issue has been loose, built around claims that production can move elsewhere or that sales of timber will replace meat and wool, ignoring some fundamental points.
It is often lost on city and government planners that no two soils are the same and because you concrete over one to the north you cannot simply up stakes and move crops to the south or vice versa. Unless we protect this valuable resource that not only feeds us but allows us to pay our way in the world we will need to develop an appetite for imported fruit and vegetables, having buried our own ability to grow them under concrete.
Neal Wallace
