PRICELESS agricultural land in the Hunter has been lost over the past three decades at a rate more than triple the state average.
The grim toll is revealed in a Newcastle Herald analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data between 1980 and 2010.
The statistics show 1,006,345hectares, or 35 per cent, of land in the Hunter Statistical Division is presently used for agriculture.
Since 1980, 744,755 hectares, or 42.5 per cent, of land used for food production has been lost.
By comparison, 10 per cent of agricultural land was lost in NSW during the same period.
The continuing growth of regional centres like Maitland and Singleton, combined with the coalmining industry’s rapid expansion, have been cited as key factors in the loss of agricultural land. Coal seam gas exploration and mining poses a new threat in coming years.
Farmers, planners and environmental groups have warned of major social, economic and environmental consequences of destroying a key food bowl area.
‘‘There’s no turning back once you have lost it. It’s not something you can turn around and say, this has been a mistake,’’ Tocal Agricultural College principal Cameron Archer said.
‘‘[The loss of land] is a blunt fact of economic development, but it has got strong and difficult implications in terms of our long-term ability to feed ourselves and be self-sufficient.’’
NSW Farmers Association president Fiona Simson said the region risked becoming ecologically sterile if the decline continued.
‘‘Unless we can get some up-front planning and a strategic agricultural plan put in place, not just to facilitate balanced development but to demand it, there could be nothing left in another 30 years,’’ Ms Simson said.
The NSW Minerals Council challenges the impact the industry has had on the loss of agricultural land.
A spokesman said land used by mining and waste industries in the Hunter was estimated at 20,500hectares, 0.6per cent in 2006.
‘‘It would still only be 41,000hectares if this figure had doubled in the past five years,’’ he said.
‘‘The vast majority of mining takes place on lower-value grazing land or land that isn’t arable.
‘‘Notwithstanding the actual mine footprint, offset policies mean that thousands of hectares have been acquired by mines, some of which are still used for agriculture, while other land has been directed to conservation values.’’
Almost 800,000hectares have been proclaimed national parks in the Hunter and 29 state conservation areas and nature reserves have been established since 1979.
The minerals council also pointed to work to rehabilitate mined land.
‘‘On land previously used for agriculture or plantation forestry, the aim could be to rehabilitate the land to its pre-mining level of productivity,’’ the spokesman said.
The state government is developing strategic land use policies for the Hunter and elsewhere in the state in an attempt to strike a balance between mining and other land uses such as agriculture, conservation and urban development.
‘‘As a resource-rich area of the state, the Upper Hunter has been identified as a priority region for the preparation of a Strategic Regional Land Use Plan,’’ a Department of Planning spokesman said.
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