2016-06-07 - P&E Agenda - Item 5, Attachment 1 - Agriculture and Agricultural Land Study

6. Queensland Agricultural Land Audit
The Queensland Agricultural Land Audit identifies land important to current and potential future
agricultural production across Queensland. The audit was released in May 2013 and while it is
planned to be updated each year10 it remains based on data available at that point in time.

The Audit assessed current land use and importance of land for agriculture based on the following
Agricultural Land Use Categories (ALUC)11:

•         Broadacre cropping: Rainfed or dryland cropping such as wheat or sorghum and irrigated
          broadace cropping such as cotton.
•         Annual horticulture: Irrigated horticulture crops that live for less than one year such as
          carrots and tomatoes.
•         Perennial horticulture: Irrigated crops such as nuts and fruits from woody and semi-
          herbaceous plants (trees and vines) that are cropped over a period longer than one year.
•         Intensive animal industries: Such as cattle feedlots, piggeries, poultry, eggs and
          aquaculture.
•         Grazing (sown pasture): Pastures where there is more than 50% exotic species such as
          rhodes or buffel grass.
•         Grazing (native pasture): Pastures where there is more than 50% native species such as
          blue grass communities.
•         Plantation forestry: Establishment and management of plantations (native or exotic) for
          commercial production of timber.
•         Native forestry: Commercial production of timber from existing native forests.
•         Sugarcane: Rainfed or dryland and irrigated cropping of sugarcane


6.1        Current Agriculture
The State has a database of “current” agricultural land uses derived from the Queensland Land
Use Mapping Project (QLUMP), purportedly correct to 2009 for Noosa but with some 2011
updates. Accuracy is questionable given, for instance it still shows sugar cane production which
has not been produced locally for some time.

This dataset shows various softwood forestry plantations and to a lesser degree hardwood.

It categorises pasture production into high, medium and low. Areas of “high” production, include
areas around Kin Kin, Cootharaba, Pinbarren, Federal and Cooroy Mountain. Balance areas
around Como, Ringtail Creek, Cooran, Pomona, Ridgewood and Doonan are shown as “medium”
production.

Unfortunately this mapping does not correlate with either the survey of agricultural land uses
conducted in 2015, or with the advice of local graziers. Further, rural residential estates at
Tinbeerwah, Doonan, Black Mountain, Pomona and Cooran are shown as either medium or high
pasture production under the current agriculture assessment. Even parts of Noosa Heads,
Noosaville and Tewantin are shown as medium pasture production.

For grazing purposes the State has categorised predominant land types. Very broadly:

•         Ridgewood is characterised by tall open forests on steep hills with pockets of softwood
          scrub and hoop pine scrub.
•         Black Mountain, Federal, Pinbarren and Kin Kin are dominated by softwood scrub


10
     The 2015 Annual Addendum was released in August 2015.
11
     These categories are based on generally accepted commodity and farming system groupings.
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