A New South Wales politician has formed his weight behind a new alliance formed against the development of solar farms on farmland in the Riverina region of the state, warning that the national push on renewable food is eating away at national food security.
Independent member for Wagga Wagga, Dr Joe McGirr, said in a statement that he supports the new local push to keep “solar factories” of productive farmland in the region known as NSW’s “food bowl”.
This push is being mounted by a group called Riverina Sustainable Food Alliance (RSFA), which launched last week to “protect valuable farmland and food security” – they have a private Facebook page here.
McGirr, noting that there are currently a number of “solar factories” being proposed to his constituents – including a 12MW project proposed for about 16km outside Wagga by BayWa RE – said it would “make no sense” for them to run on some of the best to put Australia. Farm land.
“We know we need renewable energy, but we also need to eat,” he said.
“There are many places – like the state’s renewable energy zones – where these solar plants could be developed.
“Why put them on prime agricultural land and why put them so close to the regional cities? It makes no sense.
“The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has rightly pointed out that with the global population continuing to climb, we also need a substantial increase in food production. Covering prime agricultural land with solar panels will not improve food security.
McGirr cites two of the alliance’s members, Borambola landowners Rick and Pam Martin, whose property is adjacent to the land on which a 307-acre solar farm is proposed – most likely the 160MW Mates Gully project developed by Spark Renewables. Spark also owns the nearest 100MW Bomen Solarfarm.
Martins say their concerns about the construction of the solar farm next door include the loss of productive arable land, as well as the impact the solar panels have on the long-term quality of the land.
“(It is) possible that substantial earthworks will have to be done to flatten parts of the undulating country,” Mr Martin said in McGirr’s media release.
“This will have a detrimental impact on the water table and possibly increase the threat of drought salinity, an issue we have worked so hard to address.” Ms. Martin also raised concerns about forest fires.
Opposition to large-scale solar energy from the Australian agricultural sector has grown in recent years, particularly as projects get bigger and more frequently proposed.
In May last year, a subsidiary of the NSW Country Women’s Association voted to call on governments to prevent solar farms from developing in the primary agricultural areas.
In comments to The Land at the time, CWA NSW President Stephanie Stanhope said members were concerned that a number of solar farm systems were proposed for regional NSW “foreign property” and built on land that was better used for agriculture.
“There is a line there and the government has to decide where that line is,” she told the paper. “I do not think we really looked at what all the impact was.
“We have to get the premium [agricultural] Land for food production or a future where we have to import our own food? Many of these solar farms are foreign-owned. Landowners quite often have no opinion and some will sell because they want to go out and retire. This is a real fear that we will lose our primitive agricultural land, “she said.
This will be a key issue for the NSW government and for project developers as the state works to roll out huge quantities of new renewable energy capacity to populate renewable energy zones and replace outgoing coal-fired power generators.
Already, the state government has tightened the guidelines for state planning rules to protect large regional centers from “achieving solar and wind development” after receiving almost unanimous support for the changes.
The planning change, first marked by the government in October, seeks to restrict renewable energy projects to be built within 10 km of a commercial center, or within 5 km of residential land, in Albury, Armidale, Bathurst, Dubbo, Griffith, Orange , Tamworth and Wagga Wagga.
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