Ex-Sydneysider STUART PEARSON looks at Bathurst and its future from the perspective of a new resident.
A CENTURY ago, the Sydney basin had sufficient numbers of farms, orchards and market gardens that it easily fed itself. Only the produce of broadacre farms, such as cattle, sheep and cereal crops, needed to be brought into the city from beyond the Blue Mountains.
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But all that has changed. Over the last 100 years, Sydney has grown so rapidly that large swaths of productive farmland have been converted into suburban building allotments.
At current growth rates, about 50,000 new citizens come to live in the Sydney basin each year. That’s the equivalent of Wagga Wagga’s population being added to the state capital annually.
In Sydney, agricultural land that once fed its people is being increasingly concreted over.
According to the 2015-2016 Sydney Food Futures report (a collaborative research project between the NSW Government and several industry partners), Sydney can currently only supply 20 per cent of its food needs. In 2031, the report estimates Sydney will be able to provide only six per cent of the city’s food needs.
By 2040, Sydney would have grown to a megacity of over six million people and have needed to build another 750,000 homes – mostly by taking the last productive farmland left in the Sydney basin.
By then, it is projected that Sydney will be able to provide less than three per cent of its food needs.
Will there be food riots in the streets? Does this mean Sydney will starve? No. People will increasingly turn their attention over the mountains for their food.
In the future, it is farms in the Central West that will carry the main load of providing Sydney with fresh, good quality produce at affordable prices.
East-west road and rail corridors from the Central West to Sydney will have to be improved to cope with the extra freight (as well as the extra number of people).
There will be large food storage and distribution centres built in Lithgow, Bathurst, Orange, Dubbo, Parkes and Cowra.
Farmers, orchardists and market gardeners in the Central West will grow wealthier as Sydneysiders are forced to pay ever-increasing prices for the food that sustains them.
It used to be said that farming is a “mug’s game” in Australia, subject to the vagaries of extreme weather, pest infestations and disease causing the occasional catastrophic crop failure.
But the future couldn’t be further from this truth. Intense farming techniques using the latest technologies to reduce the effects of extreme weather will help even out the wild swings experienced in the past.
One good year in seven will become an expression of the past. In the future, agriculture, horticulture and other associated primary industries will be able to produce consistently bountiful crops at a decent profit.
What I like about this future is that, if prepared, the primary producers of the Central West could enjoy a renaissance of activity, importance and financial rewards.
The future is within our grasp. Sydney will need to import much of its food requirements from other places.
Isn’t it much better for Australia and specifically the Central West that this food travels across the Blue Mountains, rather than across the ocean from some foreign country?