Mid North Coast Farmland Mapping Project
Agriculture is an important and long-standing activity on the Mid North Coast of NSW. In 2001, its gross value to the regional economy was $245 million. With strong predicted growth likely to create ongoing pressure on existing farmland, the Mid North Coast Farmland Mapping Project identifies the most important areas of farmland that are to be protected from urban and rural residential development.
The project, done in consultation with farmers, identifies areas of regionally significant farmland in the six local government areas of Port Macquarie-Hastings, Kempsey, Nambucca, Coffs Harbour, Bellingen and Clarence Valley. The mapped farmland covers a range of agricultural areas (e.g. cane land, basaltic country and improved pastures) mostly located on floodplains, upstream river valleys and volcanic country.
Protecting this important farmland will provide greater certainty for farmers' agricultural investments, avert future land use conflicts and aid the region's ability to produce food sustainably. As such, councils will not be able to rezone any of the mapped areas for urban or rural residential use and the land will also be protected from rezonings that would allow potentially incompatible uses on neighbouring land.
The project does not propose rules that would affect the ability of farmers to carry out their routine rural activities and does not identify farmland in existing urban, rural residential, industrial or commercial zones.
Please note that as the map files are large they may take some time to download.
- Final recommendations report (NSW Government 2009)
- Map 1 - Northern Clarence Valley [ 5 MB]
- Map 2 - Southern Clarence Valley, parts of Coffs Harbour and Bellingen [ 8.9 MB]
- Map 3 - Nambucca Valley and parts of Coffs Harbour, Bellingen and Kempsey [ 7.1 MB]
- Map 4 - Port Macquarie-Hastings and part of Kempsey [ 5.4 MB]
- Fact sheet - Mid North Coast farmland Mapping Project