Simply speaking, according to Landcare Research only 5% of our land is fertile and versatile enough to produce food without the need for significant manipulation.
That makes the loss of 10,080 hectares of high-value land to Auckland housing, as happened recently, reckless in the extreme.
Sadly, that is only the tip of the iceberg because, according to Statistics NZ, we lost a total of 889,000 hectares of farmland between 2002 and 2007. That’s a 5.7% decrease and unsustainable.
Vegetable-growing land, that’s our most fertile, decreased by 28,766 hectares over the same period.
What we need, in my view, is a national debate on our way forward that leads to an achievable strategy.
The problem, again in my view, is unsustainable immigration.
Since the then government opened up immigration in 2013 the Auckland population increased in just four years by 163,800 of which 108,400 were immigrants.
New Zealand, we are told, has the fastest growing population in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, largely as a result of immigration.
Putting the 163,800 figure in perspective, it is greater than the entire populations of the cities of Tauranga, Napier-Hastings and Dunedin and two-thirds the population of Hamilton.
I realise the influx of immigrants helped boost GDP but at what cost?
My extreme frustration is that no-one questioned the wisdom of increasing the population of Auckland by the equivalent of the entire population of Wairarapa each and every year.
For the record, I’m not anti-immigration. What I am firmly opposed to is the blind opening of our borders with no thought of the effects and no investment in the extra infrastructure needed to support that immigration.
That immigration means Auckland was short of 34,000 houses by November last year and those houses need to be built somewhere.
But it’s actually far worse than that.
Logic suggests you can’t increase the population of a city by 163,800 without building more motorways, hospitals, schools and houses.
It seemed to me the government of the time welcomed the boost to GDP that immigration gave while totally ignoring the infrastructure that increase required.
My problem is general taxpayers, you and I, end up paying for the mess.
My additional problem is that it was a mess any idiot should have seen. Perhaps they did but chose to ignore it.
The end result of that is we’ve already lost 10,080 hectares of good land to Auckland urban sprawl and the extra 34,000 houses Auckland needs must go somewhere.
The obvious answer is upwards but the Aucklanders, bless their little cotton socks, don’t want that because it would destroy their quality of life. Who cares?
The problem is if they do move to Pukekohe it will cost and massively so.
Horticulture NZ tells us the productive land to the south of Auckland is but 4300 hectares.
Taking that land out of production will cost $1.1 billion in 25 years and up to 4500 full time jobs will be lost.
It will also mean fruit and vegetable prices for Jafas will go up 58%.
With urban sprawl let’s return to the Landcare figure of 5% of our land being fertile and versatile enough to produce food without significant manipulation.
That significant manipulation would include fertiliser and irrigation.
That begs the question would the population be prepared to let farmers use more fertiliser and develop more irrigation to produce the food lost as a result of urban sprawl.
I don’t think so, which leaves the productive rural sector between the proverbial rock and hard place.
Urban sprawl is taking our good agricultural land and no-one outside our sector seems to give a fig.
Then, to compensate for the land loss, we need to fertilise and irrigate less fertile land and no-one in urban NZ seems to want that either.
The debate over urban sprawl, however, is little different from all the scientists and so-called experts who tell us ad nauseum to do stupid things like getting rid of animals and growing more mung beans.
They forget the vast majority of our soils are incapable of growing anything other than grass and there is a very small area that could grow crops with more fertiliser and more water.
As a large part of our agricultural land is unsuitable for cultivation, growing mung beans and lentils isn’t an option.
What all of that means is that preserving our elite lands is critical, not only to the farmers involved but the country as a whole.
What is needed is recognition of the issue followed by a political reaction to preserve an asset that once lost can never be replaced.
