TALKS on reducing planning red tape are to take place between Victorian Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford and Planning Minister Richard Wynne this week.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Ms Pulford said the talks followed concerns about councils stifling agricultural development, close to urban centres, by rigorous interpretation of planning rules.
"I understand Mr Wynne's office has also met with the Victorian Farmers Federation and is continuing to work with it, and local councils, to make sure our planning rules strike the right balance," she said.
Matters came to head when the Murrindindi council turned down an intensive animal husbandry permit for David Blackmore’s Wagyu operation at Alexandra.
Council planning officers recommended the permit be issued, subject to conditions, but the council knocked it back after objections about smell and noise.
"It's important to make sure we get the balance right between supporting and growing our vital agricultural sector and land users, and community concerns around planning and the environment," Ms Pulford said.
"But I am concerned about some recent cases where we are seeing farming families who have been on the land for generations now required to seek a permit to farm."
Ms Pulford said clarification was being sought around the interpretation of the planning definition of intensive agricultural production, upon which the permit was based.
It also followed a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruling that a Wandin North organic piggery should be classified as a intensive animal husbandry.
VCAT deputy president Helen Gibson found Happy Valley Free Range was an intensive operation and unlawful under the Yarra Ranges planning scheme.
Ms Gibson made her ruling on the food source, which supplied the animal's primary nutritional needs, rather than volume of product brought onto the site.
"The emphasis in the definitions of extensive animal husbandry and intensive animal husbandry is on the main source of food for the animals – and whether it comes from the land itself, or is imported," she said.
Speaking at the Victorian Agribusiness Summit last week, VFF policy and commodities executive manager Peter Hunt said the Blackmore decision was "political”.
"The town planners put up 20 pages showing it was an appropriate use for this property," he said.
But the decision was just one more case in a long line of controversial issues surrounding the “right to farm”.
He said it was time for clear guidelines to be established around what was meant by intensive animal husbandry permits.
