A YOUNG local farmer has a message for Bathurst Regional Council as it prepares an economic plan for the city for the next three years: don’t forget about agriculture.
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Amy Gullifer, who grew up on a farm at Duramana, spoke at one of Bathurst Regional Council’s recent business community forums as council begins the process to come up with an Economic Development Strategy 2017-2020.
She says Bathurst should be careful not to lose, in its rapid growth, part of what has made it such an attractive destination in the first place.
Ms Gullifer is worried Bathurst’s booming residential spread is forcing up the value of farmland in the district as what were previously paddocks become house lots, making it harder for young farmers to buy their first property.
Ms Gullifer acknowledges that the city’s rapid growth is an indication of Bathurst’s success, but says the story can be more complicated than that.
“For different stakeholders, there are different effects that it has on them,” she said. “What's bad for one is good for others.”
Ms Gullifer, who share-farms with her partner on the O’Connell Road, thinks one solution would be for council to create a database that links young farmers looking to get on the land with farmers who do not want, or no longer have the capacity, to work their land.
In some cases, she said, this might be an absentee owner, but in other cases it might be a farmer who wants to stay on the property, but can no longer do the work.
As to why the people of Bathurst should be concerned about any diminution in the local agricultural sector, Ms Gullifer said it remains a big contributor to the local economy.
“It’s a very important industry to Bathurst,” she said. “There are a lot of other industries supported by farmers.”
Ms Gullifer said Bathurst’s proximity to Sydney – which has been a factor in the city’s population growth – had been of benefit to the city.
“It’s been a good thing being so close,” she said. “But we need to remember that we're popular because we're not Sydney.”
Ms Gullifer said the Bathurst she would like to see in the future would be a “prosperous regional centre” that protected the agricultural industry surrounding it “with the aim of preserving a rural lifestyle”.
Bowyer and Livermore director Todd Clements said opportunities remained in the agriculture industry for young local farmers, but there were challenges.
Those challenges included the hefty equity required to buy a rural property, and how far a young local farmer would be prepared to buy from Bathurst.
“Around our area, it’s pretty difficult to find a cheap property,” he said.
“To buy a decent property, it’s $2000 to $3000 an acre, and up to $4000. So it makes it hard.”
Properties on the market were also a problem, he said.
“There's not a lot of places on the market at the minute no matter where you go,” he said. “It’s quite difficult to find anything decent.
“You can go to the north of us and can buy pretty plain sort of country cheap enough, but that does not suit everybody.”
Mr Clements did not believe the value of rural property around Bathurst was being forced up because of the city’s residential growth.
“Rural property has only started to go up in the last six months,” he said.
But he agreed with Ms Gullifer that the importance of farming to Bathurst’s economy should not be understated.
“The rural industry supports Bathurst more than anything else in Bathurst at the minute,” he said.
“Without agriculture around Bathurst, it [the city] would be only half what it is.
“It does support a hell of a lot of businesses around town.”