Australia is one of the most urbanised nations in the world, with almost 90% of our population now residing in cities and major towns. This trend is continuing, with the populations of our major cities expected to continue to grow over the coming century.

Sydney’s population of 4.2 million is expected to grow by 1.6 million people in the 20 years to 2035 (A Plan for Growing Sydney). Most of this growth – 900,000 of it – is expected to occur in Western Sydney.

Sydney Basin, being geographically constrained by ocean to the east, mountains to the west and national parks to the north and south, has consistently sprawled into peri-urban agricultural areas between the western edge of the city and the mountains. This pattern is planned to continue into the future, with the current peri-urban regions planned as the focus-areas for Sydney’s growth to 2051.

This new population will require 664,000 new homes, new employment precincts, transport corridors and town centres. Much of this growth is planned for the peri-urban areas to Sydney’s northwest and southwest – areas that are primarily used for agriculture at present.

Sydney was, historically, surrounded by a greater area of agricultural production than exists today. A large proportion of Sydney’s vegetables, poultry and dairy products were once sourced from within the basin (Sobels, 2012). However, the post-war housing boom of the 1950s and 1960s consumed much agricultural land in Sydney’s west (Grayson, 2015). Seeing the financial opportunity that was opened to those farmers who sold their property, farmers sold their landholdings throughout the 1970s and 1980s to finance their retirement, gaining high prices for their property due to increasing demand for housing land in Sydney. Large-scale private development of housing land in the 1970s, supported by the state government led to the massive expansion of Sydney’s urban footprint to the west, with little consideration for the importance of peri-urban agriculture.

Around sixty years after that post-war boom began to erode Sydney’s agricultural productivity, the state government released a Metropolitan Plan in 2012 proposing that 220,000 homes in the north-west and south-west growth areas should replace around 603 hectares of Sydney’s produce farms (Sobels, 2012). This would uproot around 40% of all market gardens in the basin, with no strategy for relocating them (Sobels, 2012).

In 2014, the state government released a new metropolitan strategy – A Plan for Growing Sydney. The strategy makes little mention of how agriculture in peri-urban areas will be addressed or protected, and continues to promote the development of the southwest and northwest ‘growth centres’ for residential and commercial development.

Of course, it is not strictly necessary for cities to sprawl in order to accommodate a growing population. Despite being the densest city in Australia (that is, Sydney houses more people per square kilometre than any other Australian city), Sydney currently has a low population density comparative to the rest of the world. At a total size of 2,037 km², Sydney ranks 40^th in the world in terms of total urban area, however, it sits at 902^nd place for population density, with a density of only 5,000 people per square kilometre. These figures tell us that Sydney has a problem with urban sprawl, and that its geographic footprint is larger than its population would suggest.

Significant opportunities still exist for infill developments along transport corridors, to prevent sprawl and make use of the city’s existing infrastructure. ‘Infill’ development (often called ‘brownfield’ development due to it being an alternative to ‘greenfield’ development), involves increasing density within the current bounds of the city to accommodate population growth.

State governments have, over the past decade, released metropolitan planning strategies that have sought to reduce urban sprawl. However, they have still allowed large swathes of agricultural land to be transformed into housing land, locating many new communities far from transport corridors and employment opportunities, and severing many branches of the local food system.

In addition to the absolute loss of available agricultural land, there is also concern about a loss in agricultural production, farmer livelihoods and commercial viability associated with fragmentation and rezoning or subdividing of agricultural land. This can lead to increased conflicts between farming and ‘lifestyle’ landowners. Issues such as noise or smells arising from typical agricultural operations impact upon non-agricultural residents.

Agricultural activities involve impacts such as noise – tractors, trucks and other machinery, smells – manure, fertiliser, organic waste – impacts that are at odds with the peaceful, rural lifestyle that many ‘tree-changers’ seek when they move to peri-urban areas.

This has led to a rise in nuisance complaints from new residents seeking to limit the activities of neighbouring agricultural businesses – farmers who may have been working the land for generations (Houston 2005). This has, in turn, led to council restrictions of agricultural operations – such as limitations on hours of machinery operations or constraints on the types of fertilisers used – being imposed by councils and other authorities that are impinging upon farmers’ abilities to operate profitably. In particular, intensive animal industries, such as shed-based poultry, that have remained present in peri-urban areas, have frequently come into conflict with new residents.

New residential areas must also be serviced by roads, rail lines and other infrastructure facilities. Generally, building these new services involves the compulsory acquisition of land – which the state government is legally entitled to do if building essential infrastructure such as new access roads, schools or rail lines. Governments often find it cheaper and more politically tenable to acquire agricultural land than to acquire residential land, as the lower development potential of agriculturally-zoned land means that compensation costs are lower, and because there are fewer political challenges associated with resuming land than resuming people’s homes.

Only certain types and scales of agricultural businesses are able to survive or adapt to these changes and the continued fragmentation of agricultural lands. Agricultural businesses in the Sydney Basin are becoming smaller rather than larger – a trend that is directly opposite to that which is being seen elsewhere in Australia. This trend towards smaller businesses makes them increasingly vulnerable, as their ability to compete with large-scale producers is minimal.