‘Neoliberal peri‐urban economies and the predicament of dairy farmers: a case study of the Illawarra region, New South Wales’ (Ren Hu, Nicholas J. Gill)

This was a big paper to wrap my head around. It looks at the interactions between farmers and the urban middle-class landholders moving into residential and lifestyle developments in the Illawarra region.

The paper starts with a massive literature review of issues surrounding peri-urban agriculture and agri-food governance. If you want to dive deep into Australia’s history of agricultural industry deregulation and the influence of neo-liberal policy on farming, then this is the paper for you!

The remainder of the paper examines 28 in-depth interviews of dairy farmers in the Illawarra region, supplemented with 281 local news articles to explore how farmers have experienced and been influenced by residential and lifestyle developments.

Summary of the paper

Land use in peri-urban areas is shifting as urban middle-class people move onto land converted from farming to residential and lifestyle use.

In the Illawarra region, after the deregulation of the dairy industry and market liberalisation in the 1980s, the number of dairy farms and their share of the retail price of milk have declined continuously. Combined with the increasing demand for peri-urban land for housing development, the dynamics around land use have changed considerably.

There are both positive and negative outcomes for farmers as agricultural land is priced for residential value. For some farmers, the opportunity to sell or develop land unlocks new possibilities for succession planning and retirement. Others are able to capitalise with tourism or hospitality ventures. However, for new or smaller farmers, buying new land is now impossible.

Farmers are also affected by changing social expectations. New landholders bring different views about farm practices (animal welfare, environment) and disturbance (small, noise) and many farmers have had to adapt their operations to meet changing societal expectations.

Despite farmers experiencing both positive and negative outcomes from changes to peri-urban land use, the bottom line is that farmland is being lost to residential and lifestyle uses.

Favourite quote: “To protect agriculture, simply protecting farmland is not enough, it is also necessary to enhance the terms on which agriculture persists and to make it a competitive peri-urban land-use.”

My thoughts

Through this paper, I can see the chain of events that led to our present situation where the dominant grocery chains and a handful of milk processors shift the operational costs of producing dairy products to farmers in the form of very low prices for raw milk.

But beyond this history lesson, I also have a greater appreciation for how farmers become active participants in shaping their region through the transformation from purely agricultural use to residential and lifestyle uses. This paper suggests there is an overall ambivalence towards the change in the Illawarra region, as some farmers find benefits and all dairy farmers adapt to new economic realities.

The paper caused me to consider my participation in this process. I’m an urban middle-class person wanting to settle in a productive agricultural region. I’m a participant in the urbanisation of this rural landscape and bring my own attitude and expectations into the community as well.

Full paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-022-10372-9