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Re-valuing the Fringe Some Findings on the Value of Agricultural Production in Australiarsquos Peri-Urban Regions

PETER HOUSTON

Primary Industries and Resources South Australia

Abstract

The agriculture that occurs in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions is not well under-stood nor has its economic value ever been examined systematically Using aspatial frame derived from research into population change Agricultural Censusdata are used to calculate the value of this agricultural production The analysissuggests that peri-urban regions in the five mainland States produce almost 25of Australiarsquos total gross value of agricultural production Evidence gatheredfrom other surveys suggests that in some respects this may be an underesti-mate Although qualified and provisional these findings have important strategicimplications for agricultural development urban and regional development andultimately sustainable development However peri-urban issues are oftensubmerged in public policy deliberations and peri-urban agriculture is poorlyserved by the Agricultural Census

KEY WORDS

peri-urban exurban urban fringe agricultural productiongross value Agricultural Census Australia

ACRONYMSABARE Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource EconomicsABS Australian Bureau of StatisticsBIMPR Bureau of Immigration Multicultural and Population ResearchESD Ecologically Sustainable DevelopmentESLM Ecologically Sustainable Land ManagementGVAP Gross Value of Agricultural ProductionNLWRA National Land and Water Resources AuditNAPUA National Audit of Peri-urban AgricultureNSW New South WalesRIRDC Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation

Introduction

Peri-urban regions are those superficially ruraldistricts within the sphere of influence of adja-cent urban centres Alternatively referred to aslsquoexurbanrsquo regions the lsquorural-urban fringersquo orlsquothe fringersquo they are generally understood tocomprise the zone of transition between theedge of the newest suburbs and the outer limitsof the commuter belt (McKenzie 1996)

1

As this

implies and as the research literature confirmsthe term is most commonly used in relation toareas that surround large population centres Inother words lsquoperi-urbanrsquo usually means lsquoperi-metropolitanrsquo even though in theory at least allbut the smallest urban centres have a discernibleperi-urban sphere of influence

Australiarsquos peri-urban regions are an importantand increasingly contested arena for sustainable

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development Writing in the mid-1990s aboutAustraliarsquos five major peri-urban regionsMcKenzie observed that

these regions are likely to have a range ofproblems associated with population growthpressures as well as specific problems aris-ing from the complex mixture of rural resi-dential and recreational land uses occurringwithin them As the National PopulationCouncil (1992) noted in its study

PopulationIssues and Australiarsquos Future

lsquoIn view of theemergence of this new dispersal pattern andthe pressure on major metropolitan environ-ments knowledge of the environmentaloutcomes in these new non-metropolitanareas of major population attraction is ofgreat importancersquo (McKenzie 1996 3)

Amongst the variety of policy problems presentin peri-urban regions a perennial theme is theirimportance in terms of agriculture This tradi-tionally manifests itself in a concern over theconversion of agricultural land in the face ofurban encroachment Differing views about thisphenomenon have generated a long-runninginternational debate over the loss of such landand the need to protect it (Best 1977 Bryantand Johnston 1992 Bunce 1998) Previousresearch and writing relevant to an understand-ing of agriculture in Australiarsquos peri-urbanregions has tended to view this topic through thesame lens (Wills 1992 Bowie 1993)

In contrast the aim of this paper is simply toshed some light on the dimensions of the agri-cultural activity that occurs there It does thisprimarily by reference to data describing areaand gross value of agricultural production asreported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics(ABS) Agricultural Census This is not to ignorethe debate over conversion of agricultural landIndeed there remain good reasons for thinkingcarefully about the fate of agriculture in peri-urban regions not least because it is inextricablylinked to land supply and hence to the unfold-ing pattern of development and resource useoccurring there However any worthwhile newcontribution to that debate first requires a reap-praisal of agriculture in peri-urban regions Abetter understanding of its economic contribu-tion to agriculture at large provisional thoughthe insights from these data may be is anobvious starting point

Conventional wisdom about agriculture inAustraliarsquos peri-urban regions tends to bedismissive about its economic significance

However the research described here suggestsotherwise Specifically it finds that peri-urbanregions which comprise less than 3 of landused for agriculture in the five mainland statesare responsible for almost 25 of total grossvalue of agricultural production Furthermorecomparing the ABS data used to reach thesefindings with the results of surveys conductedby State agriculture agencies suggests that thisfigure may be conservative Because peri-urbanregions will be the site of significant populationgrowth for the foreseeable future these findingshave important implications for policy-makers

What follows is a summary of investigationsthat commenced in 1996 during the course ofpostgraduate research examining the public policytreatment of peri-urban agriculture in AustraliaThose investigations are now being revisited aspart of a National Audit of Peri-urban Agricul-ture (NAPUA) sponsored by the Rural Indus-tries Research and Development Corporation(RIRDC)

2

The findings are written up here inmuch their original form Although the circum-stances described have changed marginally inthe intervening period preliminary findingsfrom the NAPUA project suggest the overallpicture has not altered dramatically

The remainder of this paper examines thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions in three parts The first partreviews contemporary insights regarding popu-lation growth and the likely extent of theperi-urban phenomenon in Australia This isnecessary to establish a spatial frame for calcula-ting the area and value of production that occursthere The second part details a procedure usingABS data by which the value of agriculturalproduction in peri-urban regions can be calcu-lated and sets out the findings of that exerciseThose findings are then discussed in light ofobserved problems with the way the Agricul-tural Census deals with agriculture in peri-urbanregions The third part considers some of theimplications of these insights for public policyand for the Agricultural Census The paperconcludes with directions for further research

Contemporary perspectives on the peri-urban phenomenon in Australia

While by no means a new phenomenon in thiscountry (Golledge 1959 Pryor 1969) the pastdecade has seen a range of reports confirmingthe significance of peri-urban regions and espe-cially the peri-metropolitan regions as majorlocations of population growth Because this

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paper is concerned with agriculture in peri-urban regions rather than the peri-urban phe-nomenon

per se

it is not necessary to rehearsethe details of that literature here However tounderstand the spatial frame used to calculatethe value of agricultural production in thefollowing section several key sources need tobe mentioned and briefly discussed

Peri-metropolitan regions

A national inquiry into

Population Issues andAustraliarsquos Future

found that lsquonon-metropolitanpopulation [growth] has been strongly spatiallyconcentrated at or just beyond the limits of com-muting around the major cities and along theeastern and southeastern coasts of mainlandAustraliarsquo (National Population Council 199262) Maher and Stimson (1994) confirmed thisfinding when they identified peri-metropolitanregions along with the adjacent outer suburbs ofmetropolitan areas and accessible high amenitycoastal areas as the dominant regions of abso-lute (numerical) population growth nationallyThey noted that lsquo[e]ven in the slowest growingregions such as South Australia and Tasmaniathere are parts of the metropolitan peripheryundergoing substantial population increasesrsquo(Maher and Stimson 1994 37) At about thesame time Bell (1995) conducted detailedresearch into internal migration patterns aroundthe country and produced striking evidence ofmovement to these same regions

Taking its cue from these findings the thenBureau of Immigration Multicultural and Popu-lation Research (BIMPR) commissioned a specialreport on population growth in peri-urban or asits author described them exurban regions

Beyond the Suburbs

(McKenzie 1996) exam-ined the causes dimensions and characteristicsof population growth in the exurban regions ofthe five mainland capital cities It found that theperi-urban phenomenon defined according toABS journey-to-work data extends up to 100kilometres from the central business district(CBD) of each city (McKenzie 1996 6) Onthis basis the report identified and mapped theLocal Government Areas (LGAs) that comprisethe five major exurban regions

Significantly

Beyond the Suburbs

also foundevidence of significant self-containment of thelabour force in these regions In other wordsmany exurban residents have exurban jobs andare not long-distance CBD commuters Explana-tions advanced for this include the attractivenessof peri-urban localities to self-employed people

changes in communications technology that affectwork practices and the continuing outward relo-cation of business and industry from the innercity to outer suburban and exurban sites (Belland Maher 1995 McKenzie 1996) This findingsuggests a greater degree of functional separa-tion between peri-metropolitan and metropolitanregions and especially the CBD than has tradi-tionally been thought to be the case

Although it raises questions as to how theseregions should be defined in future self-containment does help to explain the consider-able size of the regions identified as exurban in

Beyond the Suburbs

Rather than being the nor-mal length of commuter trips a distance of 100kilometres is the generally observed maximumextent of exurban activity This also lendsweight to claims by North American researchersthat peri-metropolitan regions are emerging as afundamentally new form of settlement pattern aclearly discernible and increasingly importantlsquomiddle landscapersquo between the (sub)urban andrural (Davis

et al

1994 46) Burnley andMurphy (1995) have queried the applicability ofthis thesis to Australia noting some importantdifferences but that was before the evidence onself-containment came to light

The peri-urban phenomenon in non-metropolitan regions

Because of the historical primacy of the capitalcities (Australia Parliament 1992) the peri-urban phenomenon in Australia is dominated byits metropolitan-orientated form This is evidentfrom the focus of most peri-urban research(Burnley and Murphy 1995 Ford 1997 Bunkerand Holloway 2001) However expressions ofthe phenomenon are not limited to metropolitanregions For example research conducted forBIMPR during the mid-1990s suggests thatperi-urban influence around some of Australiarsquoslarger provincial cities may extend as far as30ndash40 kilometres (Fiona McKenzie BIMPRpersonal communication 30 July 1996) Anyserious attempt to form a national view of theperi-urban phenomenon also needs to accountfor these non-metropolitan forms

Although acknowledged obliquely in reviewsof planning and development at the local level(Ng 1993 Edols-Meeves and Knox 1996)there is little published research that sheds lighton the dimensions of peri-urban influence in non-metropolitan regions Certainly there is nothingequivalent to

Beyond the Suburbs

Neverthelesshigh population growth rates in areas of relatively

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high population density provide a clue to itslikely extent

Research on population growth at the Statist-ical Local Area (SLA) level helps identify threenon-metropolitan forms of likely peri-urbaninfluence that need to be included in the reckon-ing Maher and Stimson identified high amenityareas lsquoall along the eastern and south-easterncoasts as well as hellip on the south-western coastrsquoas being significant sites of population expan-sion (1994 37ndash39) This is the same pattern ofgrowth that has more recently been termedlsquocoastal driftrsquo (Productivity Commission 1999)They note that lsquo[e]ven in locations more remotefrom the metropolitan areas some of these areasare creating their own urbanisation dynamic helliprsquo(Maher and Stimson 1994 37) For the purposesof this exercise it was assumed that most of theSLAs they identify in this category especiallythose comprising larger towns or contiguouswith metropolitan regions are also experiencinga degree of peri-urban influence

Maher and Stimson also identified as signific-ant a range of inland cities and larger towns aswell as some emerging agricultural districtsexperiencing expansion in irrigated or newintensive industries At the time of their investi-gations prior to the 1996 census the formerincluded the likes of Armidale BallaratBathurst Bendigo Dubbo Lismore Toow-oomba and Wodonga (Maher and Stimson 199438) If the peri-urban phenomenon exists at alloutside the peri-metropolitan regions it willexist around these large established provincialcentres the so-called lsquosponge citiesrsquo (Produc-tivity Commission 1999)

3

The latter groupincluded agricultural districts such as the BegaValley Margaret River and Mudgee (Maher andStimson 1994 38)

Towards a spatial frame for analysis of agriculture in peri-urban regions

Combining these various peri-metropolitan andnon-metropolitan perspectives enables the peri-urban phenomenon in the mainland States ofAustralia to be mapped on a provisional basis

4

Specifically Figure 1 does this using

1 all peri-metropolitan regions identified byMcKenzie (1996) in

Beyond the Suburbs

and2 those non-metropolitan SLAs identified by

Maher and Stimson (1994) where populationgrowth rates were greater than 10 over theperiod 1986ndash1991 and which broadly corre-spond with maps of national population

distribution and changing density (ABS1996 232)

The resulting map is only indicative of the likelyextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Aus-tralia and it needs to be qualified on a numberof counts First it has been necessary to useSLAs as the unit of analysis and as a corollaryto assume that peri-urban influence is uniformwithin them While there is evidence to supportthe delineation of the peri-metropolitan regionson this basis (McKenzie 1996) it is problematicfor some of the non-metropolitan SLAs Forthose that include a large provincial city it isreasonable to assume that peri-urban influencemight extend across most of the local govern-ment area especially given the BIMPR findingsreferred to above However for SLAs that donot contain large population centres this maysignificantly exaggerate the extent of peri-urbaninfluence

Second there is an assumption that popula-tion growth in the non-metropolitan SLAs is notlimited to townships but extends into the hinter-land of those towns This can be resolved in partby reference to ABS data that describe popula-tion and development outside townships andsmall settlements the so-called lsquorural balancersquoFor example analysis of population growth inAdelaidersquos peri-urban region by Ford (1997)reveals that the rural balance component thereaccounted for approximately 25 of the regionrsquostotal population growth in the period 1976ndash1996 Likewise Edols-Meeves and Knox (1996)found that 25 of new dwelling commence-ments in SLAs on the NSW north coast werelocated in rural areas Figure 1 assumes asimilarly significant percentage of populationgrowth and development outside of townshipsin all selected non-metropolitan SLAs Hereagain though this may exaggerate the extentof peri-urban influence in some cases

Third there is an assumption here that theperi-urban phenomenon is linked to populationgrowth in particular that it is limited to SLAsexperiencing high rates of growth However asGraham (1994) has shown in relation to Hobartlow rates of population growth may mask sub-stantial social change and development activityon the ground Net change in SLA populationas used here out of necessity is only a crudeindicator of the presence of peri-urban influ-ence It reveals nothing about population turno-ver and its spatially variable expressions nordoes it indicate the practical implications of

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ustralian Geographers 2005

Figure 1 Statistical Local Areas subject to peri-urban influence Australia 1994 Refer text for explanation

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occupancy change in rural and peri-urban areasThe latter is especially relevant to any consider-ation of agriculture in peri-urban regions as thelsquoright-to-farmrsquo debate demonstrates Consequentlythere may be a number of apparently slow-growth SLAs including some of the lsquospongecitiesrsquo (Productivity Commission 1999) whichdo not appear in Figure 1 but arguably shouldIn this regard the map may understate the extentof peri-urban influence

Fourth given that it is based on decade-olddata and SLA boundaries Figure 1 may seemsomewhat out of date Population researchconducted since the 1996 census (Beer 1999Productivity Commission 1999) suggests thatsome SLAs have dropped out of the non-metropolitan growth categories and others havecome in More recent evidence on populationchange nationally also points to a significanttrend towards inner-city SLAs and a slackeningof growth rates in some peri-urban regions(ABS 2002) However mindful of the previousparagraph it is questionable whether analysis ofthe peri-urban phenomenon would be improvedby access to the very latest data on populationchange It might also be argued that a frameof reference from the most recent period ofacknowledged peri-urban expansion is moreuseful than one established now On balanceany expansion of peri-urban influence in the pastdecade is probably off-set by the recent slowingof growth pressures in those regions

These qualifications aside Figure 1 is a rea-sonable representation of the likely extent of theperi-urban phenomenon in the five mainlandStates The SLA is a standard unit of analysisfor a great deal of population research and inany case is the smallest geographic unit forwhich Agricultural Census data are available Ifit is at all possible to calculate the value of agri-cultural production in Australiarsquos peri-urbanregions it will have to be done on an SLA basisOther assumptions about the presence or other-wise of peri-urban influence are unavoidableonce the SLA is adopted as the unit of analysisSome readers might want to nominate SLAs tobe added to or removed from the map but the neteffect is unlikely to be substantial Shortcomingssuch as these are reasonable in an exploratoryundertaking of this type

Notwithstanding this conclusion any inter-pretation of peri-urban influence based solely ondemographic variables will always be less thanideal for examining agriculture in peri-urbanregions For any analysis of their agricultural

dimensions peri-urban regions are best under-stood as rural districts under the influence ofurban property markets (Nelson 1990) It is thedirect and indirect consequences for farming ofthis real estate factor which includes demandfrom the self-containment and weekend retreatsectors (Trevor Budge and Associates 1994McKenzie 1996) that differentiates peri-urbanagriculture from agriculture generally In otherwords in attempting to understand the extent ofagriculture subject to peri-urban influence it isnot sufficient simply to look at primary indica-tors such as population growth and commutingpatterns What ultimately requires mapping arethe secondary consequences of those phenom-ena namely the actual or anticipated conversionof farmland to non-farm uses and the implica-tions of this for agriculture in the meantime

In a researcherrsquos ideal world it might be pos-sible to map peri-urban agriculture on the basisof the lsquourban price shadowrsquo (Krushelnicki andBell 1989) and surveys of farmersrsquo perceivedlsquotime left for agriculturersquo (Bryant 1974) Thiswould provide a spatial frame defined in termsrelevant to agricultural investment and develop-ment However such an approach would behighly resource intensive and beyond the meansof most researchers Over the medium term asomewhat more sophisticated frame may befeasible This could perhaps be defined withreference to building approvals occupancychange and employment data for the rural bal-ance section of SLAs and possibly at the levelof the Census Collection District For the shortterm though Figure 1 or something like it isthe only practical starting point for researcherswanting to analyse agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

The value of agricultural production in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions

An early-1990s review of rural policy issues inthe United States revealed that lsquofarming in andnear 12 of the nationrsquos major metropolitan areas[comprised] only 5 per cent of Americarsquosfarmland [yet generated] 17 per cent of allagricultural salesrsquo It was also noted that lsquowhilethese areas account for only 20 per cent of thenationrsquos population they contain 40 per cent ofits [population] growthrsquo (Lapping 1994 12)

These statistics call to mind the fact that nosimilar analysis has been conducted for Austra-lian agriculture While the ABS has for manyyears collected the raw data with which toconduct such analyses the insights we have are

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limited to those found in undergraduate text-books and atlases (NATMAP 1980 Cooper1982 Scott 1987) Whatever the reasons forthis situation it will suffice here to conclude thatthere is little evidence of research that seeks toanalyse the spatial pattern of agricultural pro-duction value in Australia rather than merely todescribe it in the broadest of terms

An opportunity to shed light on this subjectarose in 1996 as part of postgraduate researchexamining the public policy treatment of peri-urban agriculture in Australia In the course ofthat work it was necessary to examine the valueof agricultural production in peri-urban regionsrelative to agriculture generally The next twoparts of this section describe how that work wasundertaken and summarise its findings The finalpart presents some contrasting perspectiveswhich raise questions about how much is reallyknown regarding agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

Research method

Using data from the ABS Agricultural Census asimple database was constructed for analysingregional variation in the area and value ofagricultural production for the five mainlandStates The database comprises total Area ofAgricultural Establishments and total GrossValue of Agricultural Production data (hereafterlsquoarearsquo and lsquoGVAPrsquo) for SLAs in each of themainland States over the three-year period 199293 to 199495 A full copy of the database isavailable from the author

Annual area and GVAP data were assembledby State Statistical Division and SLA in anelectronic spreadsheet wherein a number ofsimple transformations and calculations wereundertaken First area and GVAP for each SLAwere converted to percentages of the respectiveState total for each year In the case of theGVAP data this conversion obviated the need toadjust for the effect of inflation The resultingannual percentage figures permit qualified year-to-year comparisons and analysis of temporaltrends for all SLAs It should be noted howeverthat the percentage conversions do not moderatethe effect of periodic changes to the ABS EVAOthreshold

5

which dropped from A$22 500 in199293 to A$5000 in 199394 The effect ofthis change would have been to marginallyexpand the reported GVAP in the second andthird years of the series

Second data for all three years including thepercentages were averaged to produce a single

set of figures with which to make a generalisedassessment of the significance of agriculturalproduction in peri-urban regions Normal prac-tice with agricultural data would be to base suchan average on at least five years of data so as todampen the effect of annual fluctuations in pro-duction However additional years of SLA-leveldata were not readily available at the time whenthe database was developed Although parts ofAustralia were drought-affected during theseyears which may have temporarily inflated thevalue of peri-urban production the three-yearaverages provide a more reliable indication oflong-run GVAP than a single year of data

One unintended advantage of this limitedselection of years was that it avoided most of thelocal government amalgamation activity thatoccurred in a number of Australian States inthe mid-1990s Accordingly only a handful ofSLAs had to be adjusted because of changesto LGA boundaries In most cases these weresimple amalgamations of whole LGAs and wereaccommodated in the database by combiningarea and GVAP data for the affected SLAs in thepre-amalgamation years

Following these basic transformations of thedata spreadsheet formulae were written to sumthe average area and GVAP figures for all peri-urban SLAs in the database Three scenarios werecalculated on the basis of different perspectiveson the peri-urban phenomenon as discussed inthe previous section These scenarios are sum-marised on a State-by-State basis in Table 1

Scenario A describes agriculture in peri-metropolitan regions using only those SLAsidentified by McKenzie (1996) in

Beyond theSuburbs

Since this leaves a residual component ofmetropolitan fringe agriculture unaccounted fora second peri-metropolitan version Scenario Bwas also calculated This uses total area and GVAPdata for the Metropolitan Statistical Division(MSD) in each State plus any SLAs identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

that lie outside the MSDScenario C describes total agricultural productionin peri-urban regions in each State on the basisof Scenario B plus all selected non-metropolitanSLAs A list of SLAs used in the differentscenario calculations is available from the author

Findings

The research method described above and sum-marised under Scenario C in Table 1 suggests thatperi-urban regions comprise a little less than 3of the total land base used for agriculture in thefive mainland States but generate almost 25

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of total GVAP Amongst the States the valuefigures are surprisingly uniform ranging fromQueenslandrsquos 221 to South Australiarsquos 258of total GVAP from peri-urban regions In con-trast there is a marked variation in the areafigures with Victoria comprising the highestproportion of Area of Agricultural Establish-ments in regions of peri-urban influence (133)and Queensland the lowest (17) This varia-tion can be attributed to factors such as

1 the size of each State relative to its popula-tion and pattern of urban and regional devel-opment and

2 the proportion of each State in agronomicallyfavourable zones

Scenarios A and B in Table 1 also show consid-erable inter-state variation in the significance ofthe peri-metropolitan regions While the Sydneyperi-metropolitan region comprises only a frac-tion of the total peri-urban area in New South

Wales (NSW) and generates about a third of itstotal peri-urban GVAP the Adelaide regioncomprises nearly all of South Australiarsquos peri-urban sector The likely reasons for this varia-tion are similar to those listed above namely

1 the pattern of urban and regional develop-ment in each State and in particular thedegree of primacy in its urban system

2 the size of the peri-metropolitan (exurban)region identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

and 3 the extent to which the peri-metropolitan

region has been already built out or is other-wise unavailable to agriculture

A closer look at the value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions

Table 1 provides a range of insights about agri-culture in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions but onestands out above all the others Putting asidequestions about the area of agriculture subject

Table 1 Average area and value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions Australia (excluding Tasmania NorthernTerritory and Australian Capital Territory) 199293ndash1994951 (Sources Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) AGSTATS (v22) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo71170 Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) IRDB96i (Integrated Regional DataBase) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo13530)

Scenario hellip A Peri-metropolitan agriculture 12

B Peri-metropolitan agriculture 23

C Total agriculture in peri-urban regions4

Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000)

NSW 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741Peri-Urban 89 472 426 426 90 537 448 625 2 932 413 1 351 697 of total 015 707 015 744 486 2240Qld 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540Peri-Urban 970 377 664 398 975 393 718 962 2 760 785 1 235 243 of total 064 1291 065 1397 171 2210SA 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913Peri-Urban 1 199 104 571 791 1 204 502 598 586 1 204 502 598 586 of total 212 2469 213 2581 213 2581Vic 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131Peri-Urban 735 050 819 817 743 184 855 047 2 005 878 1 464 887 of total 556 1534 563 1601 1334 2550WA 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006Peri-Urban 1 263 706 459 320 1 266 554 493 347 2 703 068 860 996 of total 105 1291 106 1390 220 2358TOTAL 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331Peri-Urban 4 257 710 2 941 752 4 280 169 3 114 566 11 606 646 5 511 408 of total 108 1322 109 1400 295 2477

Notes 1 Figures are based on data for Total Area of Agricultural Establishments and Total Gross Value of Agricultural Production averaged over the period 199293 to 199495

2 Calculated on the basis of all ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by McKenzie (1996)3 Calculated on the basis of the Metropolitan Statistical Division total plus any ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by

McKenzie (1996) outside the MSD4 Calculated on the basis of Scenario B plus all non-metropolitan SLAs shown on Figure 1

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to peri-urban influence in each State and therelative significance of the peri-metropolitanregions the figures on GVAP in Scenario C areremarkable They easily exceed the US experi-ence cited above although that comparisonneeds qualification They also fly in the face ofconventional wisdom about agriculture in Aus-traliarsquos peri-urban regions This is perhaps bestillustrated by the coverage of ABARErsquos FarmSurvey Report series an annual survey ofmainly broadacre industries that with only rareexceptions has ignored the lsquosmallrsquo and intensiveindustries situated close to major populationcentres The figures in Table 1 seriously chal-lenge that conventional wisdom

Of course the caveats discussed in the previ-ous section need to be reiterated here Thespatial basis of the calculations may be too gen-erous in some respects and hence exaggeratewhat is counted as being subject to peri-urbaninfluence Nevertheless there is a further bodyof evidence that offsets any spatial exaggerationin the research method and suggests the figureof 25 of GVAP may be conservative and insome cases by a wide margin

Published research by agriculture agenciesand local government in several States shows thatABS data consistently and substantially under-state value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions NSW Agriculture found that totalGVAP for the Sydney Statistical Division in199091 was A$461 million according to ABSdata but closer to A$850 million according totheir own ground-based surveys (Kennedy1993 2) Subsequent revisions of those surveyshave put the figure at A$940 million (NSWAgriculture 1995 15ndash16) and lsquoat least A$1billionrsquo (NSW Agriculture 1998 14) suggestinga discrepancy of about 100 In the HornsbyShire north of Sydney the same survey methodfound a discrepancy of almost 350 betweenABS data (A$22 million in 199091) and depart-mental figures (A$983 million in 1994) forGVAP (Hornsby Shire Council 1996 76) Thetime-lag between the 199091 ABS Census andthe NSW Agriculture ground surveys wouldexplain only a fraction of these differences

Similar discrepancies have been reported inVictoria South Australia and Western AustraliaFor example a study for the Shires of YarraRanges and Nillumbik northeast of Melbournereported a difference of more than 200between ABS data (A$195 million in 199899)and industry-derived figures (A$640 million in2000) for GVAP (Langworthy and Hacket

2000 11) This is consistent with Gardnerrsquos ear-lier observations about the roughly comparableUpper Yarra Valley and Dandenong Rangesregion in the early 1990s At that time ABS data(A$88 million) were also widely at variancewith industry-based estimates (A$275 million)(Gardner 1994 99) Both reports identify theflower nursery and wine grape industries as keyelements of the under-reporting

Other reports provide insights about particu-lar industries and sectors For example in West-ern Australia Kininmonth (2000 2) citing vanGool and Runge (1999) notes discrepanciesranging from 10 for fruit production to 50for vegetables Similarly a survey of productionon the Northern Adelaide Plains (NAP) whichincludes the Virginia horticulture district madethe following observations

ABS statistics for NAP vegetable flower andnursery industries are inaccurate Industryestimates and field surveys suggest thatactual production is 25 above ABS datafor field vegetables and 50 above ABS datafor glasshouse vegetable crops

ABS statistics indicate the flower andnursery industry on the NAP is valued atapproximately $2 m Industry data suggeststhe NAP flower industry is worth $10ndash12 mwhile the nursery industry is valued atapproximately $10 m (Primary IndustriesSouth Australia 1993 16)

These findings are even more remarkable thanthe figures in Table 1 Not only do they tend tooffset concerns about spatial exaggeration in theresearch method the scale of the discrepanciesif they are repeated elsewhere raise the possibil-ity that Australiarsquos peri-urban regions may wellproduce more than 25 of GVAP In the proc-ess these findings also beg important questionsabout the credibility of the Agricultural Censusand about its usefulness to decision-makers ingovernment and industry It needs to be said thatthese questions do not impinge on the accuracyof reporting about mainstream agriculture asexplained below there are good reasons forbelieving the accuracy of ABS data on broada-cre industries Nevertheless there are severalaspects of the Census that are especially prob-lematic for agriculture in peri-urban regions

Most of the discrepancies described abovewould be the result of simple under-countingin the Agricultural Census in other wordsinstances where the Census has failed to recordthe full extent of agricultural activity on the

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ground

6

This can take a number of forms Forexample failure to account for sequential crop-ping where two three or four crops are grownon the same land each year as is the case inHornsby (Hornsby Shire Council 1996) mayexplain some of the discrepancies in the vegeta-ble sector Alternatively the self-administerednature of the Census leaves room for some pro-ducers to go missing entirely In the mid-1990sNSW Agriculture found that while ABS statis-tics on vegetable production in the BlacktownLGA were based on census returns from 30growers their own records identified 182growers Predictably this caused a considerabledifference between the ABS figures for GVAPin Blacktown (A$1438 million) and thedepartmental estimate (A$1955 million) (DavidMason NSW Agriculture personal communica-tion 8 November 1996)

Under-counting in its various forms is notaltogether surprising in peri-urban regions Thediverse dynamic and fragmented nature of theselandscapes is a different proposition to broada-cre agriculture to which the Census is gearedThis is likely to render many primary productionactivities invisible to a remotely-administeredcensus which relies heavily on producersrsquo coop-eration and the volunteering of information Inthis context under-counting may be exacerbatedby social factors such as the high numbers ofproducers from non-English-speaking back-grounds (Primary Industries South Australia1993 NSW Agriculture 1995) It has also beenobserved that many producers in peri-urbanregions operate in the cash economy and wouldbe disinclined to participate in the Census(Frank Kelleher University of Western Sydneypersonal communication 25 July 1996)

7

Evidence such as this suggests that agricul-

ture in peri-urban regions is much more likelythan agriculture generally to be affected byunder-counting in the Census Indeed most ofthe traditional broadacre industries have central-ised marketing structures andor bulk-handlingsystems that leave little scope for the volume ofproduction and hence its value to be misrepre-sented However under-counting is not the onlyway in which value of production in peri-urbanregions may be misrepresented Houston (1998)has also noted potential problems associated with

1 the EVAO threshold the effect of which isheavily concentrated in peri-urban regions

2 the use of State average prices to calculatevalue of production which may ignore sig-

nificant regional disparities in prices receivedfor some commodities and

3 the reporting of gross values which fail toidentify important regional differences inmarketing costs such as transport

Against this background the findings summa-rised in Table 1 leave the reader to speculate onthe proportion of GVAP that is actually gener-ated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions The nec-essarily qualified finding of 25 is a remarkablefigure Even a reduction to say 20 to allowfor any spatial exaggeration in the researchmethod or the effect of drought in the surveyyears would still have important implicationsfor policy-makers However the intriguingpossibility that more than a quarter of total grossvalue of agricultural production comes fromperi-urban regions would force some changes inthe way we think about agriculture in Australiaand about how we regard peri-urban regionsIn the circumstances though it is best to leavethe evidence with all its qualifications andlimitations to speak for itself

On this point it also needs to be emphasisedthat the findings presented here are insufficientto enable any definitive conclusions about thewider significance of agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions GVAP data say little aboutthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences Neither is it possible to detectin these data the effect that various direct andindirect subsidies may have had on agriculturalproduction or on the levels of farm debt under-lying that production These are questions thatneed further investigation although they couldequally be asked about agriculture generallyand in regard to subsidies about urban fringehousing development too

Answers to such questions would require amajor economic modelling project well beyondthe scope of a modest research paper So for themoment the findings presented here need to bekept in perspective Nevertheless recent nationalanalysis of the spatial distribution of farm prof-itability measured on a profit-at-full-equity basissuggests that peri-urban regions may indeed beeconomically significant for reasons other thansimple GVAP (NLWRA 2002 Figure 116)

New perspectives on peri-urban agriculture and peri-urban regions

The findings of the previous section have someunsettling implications for the ways in which

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

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copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

agriculture peri-urban agriculture and peri-urbanregions are viewed in Australia Even if it is notpossible to be precise about the extent of theseimplications there is a clear case for closerexamination Such an examination should not belimited to the obvious task of better accountingfor agriculture in peri-urban regions It alsoseems worth inquiring into how public policyand the instruments on which policy-makersrely such as the Agricultural Census mighthave contributed to this situation and how bothmight need to change This section briefly laysout some themes for future consideration

Implications for public policy

Twelve years ago the House of RepresentativesStanding Committee for Long Term Strategiessuggested that Australia is lsquolike an archipelagomdash islands of closer settlement surrounded by anocean of arid or marginalised landrsquo (AustraliaParliament 1992 5) This metaphor was intendedto emphasise the extent to which Australia is anurbanised nation but it also made an importantpoint about underlying environmental circumstances

Five years later a submission to an inquiryinto Ecologically Sustainable Land Management(ESLM) sought to convey a similar messageusing a series of maps illustrating agronomicpotential land degradation current agriculturalland use population distribution and projectedpopulation growth (Houston 1997) Viewedsynoptically these maps reinforce the archipel-ago metaphor and show how Australiarsquos room tomanoeuvre with respect to its land resources ismore constrained than first appearances mightsuggest In particular the maps show that themost favourable components of the nationrsquosnatural resource endowment and the vast bulkof its population are crowded together into sec-tions of the eastern southern and south-westerncoastal strips Variations on this theme havebeen expounded previously by Nix (1990) andCocks (1992) and acknowledged by theNational Population Council (1992)

These relatively small areas of overlappingdemands are of course largely coincident withthe peri-urban regions shown in Figure 1 wherepresumably competition for resources is great-est This puts peri-urban regions at the heartof a national tug-of-war albeit undeclared overthe allocation of key natural resources It alsostrongly implicates peri-urban agriculture whichis inextricably linked to land supply in theseregions in the unfolding pattern of developmentand resource use occurring there If we now add

to this picture the findings about GVAP set outin the previous section peri-urban regions andthe agriculture that occurs there begin to assumea previously unheralded strategic significance

There are important consequences in all ofthis for Australiarsquos future options regardingagricultural development urban and regionaldevelopment and ultimately sustainable devel-opment Because peri-urban regions will be thesite of significant population growth for theforeseeable future these competing interestsneed to be more actively and deliberately medi-ated Amongst other things successfully mediat-ing the interface between urbanisation andagriculture will become increasingly importantFailure to do so risks more of the agriculturalland-use conflict that characterised the peri-urban regions of several States during the pastdecade (Langworthy and Hacket 2000 Hendersonand Epps 2001 Henderson 2003)

However an appreciation of the significanceof peri-urban regions and peri-urban agricultureis routinely absent from public policy delibera-tions and data collection Both themes wereignored in the Ecologically Sustainable Devel-opment (ESD) and ESLM investigations of the1990s (Australia ESDSC 1992 Industry Com-mission 1999) and as described above both theABS Agricultural Census and ABARE researchprovide limited insights on the topic Morerecently the National Land and Water ResourcesAudit (NLWRA) has also been silent on peri-urban issues This was despite including mapssuch as that showing the spatial distribution ofprofit-at-full-equity which clearly implicatesperi-urban regions (NLWRA 2002)

The findings of this research suggest the needfor a more fine-grained informed and lesstaken-for-granted approach to peri-urban mat-ters in Australian public policy A full analysisof why this topic is so often submerged in policydeliberations would require more space than isavailable here but two factors stand out Thefirst is the tendency in the agricultural sectortowards aspatial rather than spatially-basedanalysis and reporting The second is the moregeneral influence of sectoralism in public policy

Most of the routine analysis and reporting ofAustralian agriculture especially as it relates tovalue of production has a strong industry orsectoral orientation with little focus on geo-graphic entities smaller than the States (see forexample NLWRA 2001 Table 81) This risksinstitutional blindness to events and circum-stances at the regional and local level such as

220

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43(2)209ndash223

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those described here There is some evidenceof emerging new pseudo-spatial frames for ana-lysis such as agro-ecological regions (ABS1996) and Barrrsquos (2002) social typology of rurallandscapes However even these suffer fromaggregation or abstraction and fail to get closeto the detail of local situations To avoid institu-tional blindness spatially based analysis atsub-regional and local levels is critical

The fact that analysis and reporting so oftenignore peri-urban regions can in turn be attrib-uted to the influence of sectoralism in publicpolicy Sectoral policy networks set the contextfor how policy issues are understood and dealtwith including what gets measured (Bell1992) For major sectors that have their ownpolicy networks this poses no problems How-ever minor sectors and sub-sectors that lie at theedge of policy networks literally or figurativelywill tend to suffer a deficit of analysis and polit-ical attention Viewed this way the problem forperi-urban development issues is that they sitawkwardly between the policy networks of theurban development and agricultural sectors(Houston 1995) Policy-makers cannot changethis fact of life but they can be mindful of itsconsequences The findings of the previoussection illustrate the importance of so being

Implications for the Agricultural Census

Against this background the role of the ABSAgricultural Census appears crucial It is theonly feasible source of standardised time-seriesdata suitable for monitoring agriculture includ-ing peri-urban agriculture at a range of spatialscales As such it is central to strategic intelli-gence about agriculture and vital to informedpolicy-making for industry development andresource management However in its currentform the Census is highly problematic Besideits credibility problems in peri-urban regionsrecent changes to ABS data collection mean thatthe Census has become even less lsquofriendlyrsquo toagriculture in peri-urban regions

Since 199798 the ABS has collected agricul-tural data by way of an annual sample-basedsurvey with a full census every five yearsAlthough satisfactory for surveying agriculturein broadacre regions sampling is unsuited to thediversity and scale of agriculture in peri-urbanregions This might mean that in four years outof five data on agriculture in peri-urban regionsare even more unreliable than the informationwhich the full census ordinarily provides In factthe situation is worse The statistical limitations

of sampling mean that for four years out of fiveagricultural data are now simply not produced atthe SLA level This gives an extra layer ofmeaning to institutional blindness Not only isagriculture in peri-urban regions submerged bya preoccupation with aspatial industries andsectors it is now systematically excluded fromofficial reporting for 80 of the time

These circumstances suggest that there is aneed for serious thinking about how the ABSdeals with agriculture in peri-urban regions Fora diverse and dynamic sector that producesaround 25 of Australiarsquos GVAP the inherentproblems of the Census are bad enough How-ever limiting the insights that it can provide tofive-yearly snapshots seems completely inade-quate at a time when States are seeking to adoptan increasingly strategic approach to their foodsectors

8

It throws into question the extent towhich agricultural policy in Australia can bedescribed as well-informed

Fortunately there is also some positive newson this front There is increasing acknowledg-ment by ABS staff of the problems with dataon agriculture in peri-urban regions (MichaelVardon ABS personal communication 5 April2002) There is also the emerging possibility ofthe geocoding of ABS data (Randall and Barson2001) which raises the prospect of using aspatial frame of analysis that more closelyapproximates the true extent of peri-urban influenceBoth developments coincide with acknowledg-ment of the need for better information aboutthe small farm sector at a recent workshop forrural policy-makers (Tonts and Black 2002)and a National Audit of Peri-urban Agriculturesponsored by RIRDC

These circumstances hold some promise for acollaborative re-think about the ways and meansof collecting and presenting data on agriculturein Australiarsquos peri-urban regions This wouldbe welcome A better understanding of thisoverlooked sector is necessary for informedpublic policy-making both in the agriculturesector and in those regions that are host tosome of Australiarsquos major sustainability issues

Conclusions

This paper presents a provisional analysis of thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions Using Agricultural Censusdata and a qualified but not unreasonable spa-tial frame the analysis suggests that peri-urbanregions generate about 25 of Australiarsquos totalGVAP from less than 3 of the agricultural land

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

221

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

222

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

210

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June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

development Writing in the mid-1990s aboutAustraliarsquos five major peri-urban regionsMcKenzie observed that

these regions are likely to have a range ofproblems associated with population growthpressures as well as specific problems aris-ing from the complex mixture of rural resi-dential and recreational land uses occurringwithin them As the National PopulationCouncil (1992) noted in its study

PopulationIssues and Australiarsquos Future

lsquoIn view of theemergence of this new dispersal pattern andthe pressure on major metropolitan environ-ments knowledge of the environmentaloutcomes in these new non-metropolitanareas of major population attraction is ofgreat importancersquo (McKenzie 1996 3)

Amongst the variety of policy problems presentin peri-urban regions a perennial theme is theirimportance in terms of agriculture This tradi-tionally manifests itself in a concern over theconversion of agricultural land in the face ofurban encroachment Differing views about thisphenomenon have generated a long-runninginternational debate over the loss of such landand the need to protect it (Best 1977 Bryantand Johnston 1992 Bunce 1998) Previousresearch and writing relevant to an understand-ing of agriculture in Australiarsquos peri-urbanregions has tended to view this topic through thesame lens (Wills 1992 Bowie 1993)

In contrast the aim of this paper is simply toshed some light on the dimensions of the agri-cultural activity that occurs there It does thisprimarily by reference to data describing areaand gross value of agricultural production asreported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics(ABS) Agricultural Census This is not to ignorethe debate over conversion of agricultural landIndeed there remain good reasons for thinkingcarefully about the fate of agriculture in peri-urban regions not least because it is inextricablylinked to land supply and hence to the unfold-ing pattern of development and resource useoccurring there However any worthwhile newcontribution to that debate first requires a reap-praisal of agriculture in peri-urban regions Abetter understanding of its economic contribu-tion to agriculture at large provisional thoughthe insights from these data may be is anobvious starting point

Conventional wisdom about agriculture inAustraliarsquos peri-urban regions tends to bedismissive about its economic significance

However the research described here suggestsotherwise Specifically it finds that peri-urbanregions which comprise less than 3 of landused for agriculture in the five mainland statesare responsible for almost 25 of total grossvalue of agricultural production Furthermorecomparing the ABS data used to reach thesefindings with the results of surveys conductedby State agriculture agencies suggests that thisfigure may be conservative Because peri-urbanregions will be the site of significant populationgrowth for the foreseeable future these findingshave important implications for policy-makers

What follows is a summary of investigationsthat commenced in 1996 during the course ofpostgraduate research examining the public policytreatment of peri-urban agriculture in AustraliaThose investigations are now being revisited aspart of a National Audit of Peri-urban Agricul-ture (NAPUA) sponsored by the Rural Indus-tries Research and Development Corporation(RIRDC)

2

The findings are written up here inmuch their original form Although the circum-stances described have changed marginally inthe intervening period preliminary findingsfrom the NAPUA project suggest the overallpicture has not altered dramatically

The remainder of this paper examines thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions in three parts The first partreviews contemporary insights regarding popu-lation growth and the likely extent of theperi-urban phenomenon in Australia This isnecessary to establish a spatial frame for calcula-ting the area and value of production that occursthere The second part details a procedure usingABS data by which the value of agriculturalproduction in peri-urban regions can be calcu-lated and sets out the findings of that exerciseThose findings are then discussed in light ofobserved problems with the way the Agricul-tural Census deals with agriculture in peri-urbanregions The third part considers some of theimplications of these insights for public policyand for the Agricultural Census The paperconcludes with directions for further research

Contemporary perspectives on the peri-urban phenomenon in Australia

While by no means a new phenomenon in thiscountry (Golledge 1959 Pryor 1969) the pastdecade has seen a range of reports confirmingthe significance of peri-urban regions and espe-cially the peri-metropolitan regions as majorlocations of population growth Because this

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

211

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

paper is concerned with agriculture in peri-urban regions rather than the peri-urban phe-nomenon

per se

it is not necessary to rehearsethe details of that literature here However tounderstand the spatial frame used to calculatethe value of agricultural production in thefollowing section several key sources need tobe mentioned and briefly discussed

Peri-metropolitan regions

A national inquiry into

Population Issues andAustraliarsquos Future

found that lsquonon-metropolitanpopulation [growth] has been strongly spatiallyconcentrated at or just beyond the limits of com-muting around the major cities and along theeastern and southeastern coasts of mainlandAustraliarsquo (National Population Council 199262) Maher and Stimson (1994) confirmed thisfinding when they identified peri-metropolitanregions along with the adjacent outer suburbs ofmetropolitan areas and accessible high amenitycoastal areas as the dominant regions of abso-lute (numerical) population growth nationallyThey noted that lsquo[e]ven in the slowest growingregions such as South Australia and Tasmaniathere are parts of the metropolitan peripheryundergoing substantial population increasesrsquo(Maher and Stimson 1994 37) At about thesame time Bell (1995) conducted detailedresearch into internal migration patterns aroundthe country and produced striking evidence ofmovement to these same regions

Taking its cue from these findings the thenBureau of Immigration Multicultural and Popu-lation Research (BIMPR) commissioned a specialreport on population growth in peri-urban or asits author described them exurban regions

Beyond the Suburbs

(McKenzie 1996) exam-ined the causes dimensions and characteristicsof population growth in the exurban regions ofthe five mainland capital cities It found that theperi-urban phenomenon defined according toABS journey-to-work data extends up to 100kilometres from the central business district(CBD) of each city (McKenzie 1996 6) Onthis basis the report identified and mapped theLocal Government Areas (LGAs) that comprisethe five major exurban regions

Significantly

Beyond the Suburbs

also foundevidence of significant self-containment of thelabour force in these regions In other wordsmany exurban residents have exurban jobs andare not long-distance CBD commuters Explana-tions advanced for this include the attractivenessof peri-urban localities to self-employed people

changes in communications technology that affectwork practices and the continuing outward relo-cation of business and industry from the innercity to outer suburban and exurban sites (Belland Maher 1995 McKenzie 1996) This findingsuggests a greater degree of functional separa-tion between peri-metropolitan and metropolitanregions and especially the CBD than has tradi-tionally been thought to be the case

Although it raises questions as to how theseregions should be defined in future self-containment does help to explain the consider-able size of the regions identified as exurban in

Beyond the Suburbs

Rather than being the nor-mal length of commuter trips a distance of 100kilometres is the generally observed maximumextent of exurban activity This also lendsweight to claims by North American researchersthat peri-metropolitan regions are emerging as afundamentally new form of settlement pattern aclearly discernible and increasingly importantlsquomiddle landscapersquo between the (sub)urban andrural (Davis

et al

1994 46) Burnley andMurphy (1995) have queried the applicability ofthis thesis to Australia noting some importantdifferences but that was before the evidence onself-containment came to light

The peri-urban phenomenon in non-metropolitan regions

Because of the historical primacy of the capitalcities (Australia Parliament 1992) the peri-urban phenomenon in Australia is dominated byits metropolitan-orientated form This is evidentfrom the focus of most peri-urban research(Burnley and Murphy 1995 Ford 1997 Bunkerand Holloway 2001) However expressions ofthe phenomenon are not limited to metropolitanregions For example research conducted forBIMPR during the mid-1990s suggests thatperi-urban influence around some of Australiarsquoslarger provincial cities may extend as far as30ndash40 kilometres (Fiona McKenzie BIMPRpersonal communication 30 July 1996) Anyserious attempt to form a national view of theperi-urban phenomenon also needs to accountfor these non-metropolitan forms

Although acknowledged obliquely in reviewsof planning and development at the local level(Ng 1993 Edols-Meeves and Knox 1996)there is little published research that sheds lighton the dimensions of peri-urban influence in non-metropolitan regions Certainly there is nothingequivalent to

Beyond the Suburbs

Neverthelesshigh population growth rates in areas of relatively

212

Geographical Research

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June 2005

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43(2)209ndash223

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high population density provide a clue to itslikely extent

Research on population growth at the Statist-ical Local Area (SLA) level helps identify threenon-metropolitan forms of likely peri-urbaninfluence that need to be included in the reckon-ing Maher and Stimson identified high amenityareas lsquoall along the eastern and south-easterncoasts as well as hellip on the south-western coastrsquoas being significant sites of population expan-sion (1994 37ndash39) This is the same pattern ofgrowth that has more recently been termedlsquocoastal driftrsquo (Productivity Commission 1999)They note that lsquo[e]ven in locations more remotefrom the metropolitan areas some of these areasare creating their own urbanisation dynamic helliprsquo(Maher and Stimson 1994 37) For the purposesof this exercise it was assumed that most of theSLAs they identify in this category especiallythose comprising larger towns or contiguouswith metropolitan regions are also experiencinga degree of peri-urban influence

Maher and Stimson also identified as signific-ant a range of inland cities and larger towns aswell as some emerging agricultural districtsexperiencing expansion in irrigated or newintensive industries At the time of their investi-gations prior to the 1996 census the formerincluded the likes of Armidale BallaratBathurst Bendigo Dubbo Lismore Toow-oomba and Wodonga (Maher and Stimson 199438) If the peri-urban phenomenon exists at alloutside the peri-metropolitan regions it willexist around these large established provincialcentres the so-called lsquosponge citiesrsquo (Produc-tivity Commission 1999)

3

The latter groupincluded agricultural districts such as the BegaValley Margaret River and Mudgee (Maher andStimson 1994 38)

Towards a spatial frame for analysis of agriculture in peri-urban regions

Combining these various peri-metropolitan andnon-metropolitan perspectives enables the peri-urban phenomenon in the mainland States ofAustralia to be mapped on a provisional basis

4

Specifically Figure 1 does this using

1 all peri-metropolitan regions identified byMcKenzie (1996) in

Beyond the Suburbs

and2 those non-metropolitan SLAs identified by

Maher and Stimson (1994) where populationgrowth rates were greater than 10 over theperiod 1986ndash1991 and which broadly corre-spond with maps of national population

distribution and changing density (ABS1996 232)

The resulting map is only indicative of the likelyextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Aus-tralia and it needs to be qualified on a numberof counts First it has been necessary to useSLAs as the unit of analysis and as a corollaryto assume that peri-urban influence is uniformwithin them While there is evidence to supportthe delineation of the peri-metropolitan regionson this basis (McKenzie 1996) it is problematicfor some of the non-metropolitan SLAs Forthose that include a large provincial city it isreasonable to assume that peri-urban influencemight extend across most of the local govern-ment area especially given the BIMPR findingsreferred to above However for SLAs that donot contain large population centres this maysignificantly exaggerate the extent of peri-urbaninfluence

Second there is an assumption that popula-tion growth in the non-metropolitan SLAs is notlimited to townships but extends into the hinter-land of those towns This can be resolved in partby reference to ABS data that describe popula-tion and development outside townships andsmall settlements the so-called lsquorural balancersquoFor example analysis of population growth inAdelaidersquos peri-urban region by Ford (1997)reveals that the rural balance component thereaccounted for approximately 25 of the regionrsquostotal population growth in the period 1976ndash1996 Likewise Edols-Meeves and Knox (1996)found that 25 of new dwelling commence-ments in SLAs on the NSW north coast werelocated in rural areas Figure 1 assumes asimilarly significant percentage of populationgrowth and development outside of townshipsin all selected non-metropolitan SLAs Hereagain though this may exaggerate the extentof peri-urban influence in some cases

Third there is an assumption here that theperi-urban phenomenon is linked to populationgrowth in particular that it is limited to SLAsexperiencing high rates of growth However asGraham (1994) has shown in relation to Hobartlow rates of population growth may mask sub-stantial social change and development activityon the ground Net change in SLA populationas used here out of necessity is only a crudeindicator of the presence of peri-urban influ-ence It reveals nothing about population turno-ver and its spatially variable expressions nordoes it indicate the practical implications of

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ustralian Geographers 2005

Figure 1 Statistical Local Areas subject to peri-urban influence Australia 1994 Refer text for explanation

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occupancy change in rural and peri-urban areasThe latter is especially relevant to any consider-ation of agriculture in peri-urban regions as thelsquoright-to-farmrsquo debate demonstrates Consequentlythere may be a number of apparently slow-growth SLAs including some of the lsquospongecitiesrsquo (Productivity Commission 1999) whichdo not appear in Figure 1 but arguably shouldIn this regard the map may understate the extentof peri-urban influence

Fourth given that it is based on decade-olddata and SLA boundaries Figure 1 may seemsomewhat out of date Population researchconducted since the 1996 census (Beer 1999Productivity Commission 1999) suggests thatsome SLAs have dropped out of the non-metropolitan growth categories and others havecome in More recent evidence on populationchange nationally also points to a significanttrend towards inner-city SLAs and a slackeningof growth rates in some peri-urban regions(ABS 2002) However mindful of the previousparagraph it is questionable whether analysis ofthe peri-urban phenomenon would be improvedby access to the very latest data on populationchange It might also be argued that a frameof reference from the most recent period ofacknowledged peri-urban expansion is moreuseful than one established now On balanceany expansion of peri-urban influence in the pastdecade is probably off-set by the recent slowingof growth pressures in those regions

These qualifications aside Figure 1 is a rea-sonable representation of the likely extent of theperi-urban phenomenon in the five mainlandStates The SLA is a standard unit of analysisfor a great deal of population research and inany case is the smallest geographic unit forwhich Agricultural Census data are available Ifit is at all possible to calculate the value of agri-cultural production in Australiarsquos peri-urbanregions it will have to be done on an SLA basisOther assumptions about the presence or other-wise of peri-urban influence are unavoidableonce the SLA is adopted as the unit of analysisSome readers might want to nominate SLAs tobe added to or removed from the map but the neteffect is unlikely to be substantial Shortcomingssuch as these are reasonable in an exploratoryundertaking of this type

Notwithstanding this conclusion any inter-pretation of peri-urban influence based solely ondemographic variables will always be less thanideal for examining agriculture in peri-urbanregions For any analysis of their agricultural

dimensions peri-urban regions are best under-stood as rural districts under the influence ofurban property markets (Nelson 1990) It is thedirect and indirect consequences for farming ofthis real estate factor which includes demandfrom the self-containment and weekend retreatsectors (Trevor Budge and Associates 1994McKenzie 1996) that differentiates peri-urbanagriculture from agriculture generally In otherwords in attempting to understand the extent ofagriculture subject to peri-urban influence it isnot sufficient simply to look at primary indica-tors such as population growth and commutingpatterns What ultimately requires mapping arethe secondary consequences of those phenom-ena namely the actual or anticipated conversionof farmland to non-farm uses and the implica-tions of this for agriculture in the meantime

In a researcherrsquos ideal world it might be pos-sible to map peri-urban agriculture on the basisof the lsquourban price shadowrsquo (Krushelnicki andBell 1989) and surveys of farmersrsquo perceivedlsquotime left for agriculturersquo (Bryant 1974) Thiswould provide a spatial frame defined in termsrelevant to agricultural investment and develop-ment However such an approach would behighly resource intensive and beyond the meansof most researchers Over the medium term asomewhat more sophisticated frame may befeasible This could perhaps be defined withreference to building approvals occupancychange and employment data for the rural bal-ance section of SLAs and possibly at the levelof the Census Collection District For the shortterm though Figure 1 or something like it isthe only practical starting point for researcherswanting to analyse agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

The value of agricultural production in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions

An early-1990s review of rural policy issues inthe United States revealed that lsquofarming in andnear 12 of the nationrsquos major metropolitan areas[comprised] only 5 per cent of Americarsquosfarmland [yet generated] 17 per cent of allagricultural salesrsquo It was also noted that lsquowhilethese areas account for only 20 per cent of thenationrsquos population they contain 40 per cent ofits [population] growthrsquo (Lapping 1994 12)

These statistics call to mind the fact that nosimilar analysis has been conducted for Austra-lian agriculture While the ABS has for manyyears collected the raw data with which toconduct such analyses the insights we have are

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limited to those found in undergraduate text-books and atlases (NATMAP 1980 Cooper1982 Scott 1987) Whatever the reasons forthis situation it will suffice here to conclude thatthere is little evidence of research that seeks toanalyse the spatial pattern of agricultural pro-duction value in Australia rather than merely todescribe it in the broadest of terms

An opportunity to shed light on this subjectarose in 1996 as part of postgraduate researchexamining the public policy treatment of peri-urban agriculture in Australia In the course ofthat work it was necessary to examine the valueof agricultural production in peri-urban regionsrelative to agriculture generally The next twoparts of this section describe how that work wasundertaken and summarise its findings The finalpart presents some contrasting perspectiveswhich raise questions about how much is reallyknown regarding agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

Research method

Using data from the ABS Agricultural Census asimple database was constructed for analysingregional variation in the area and value ofagricultural production for the five mainlandStates The database comprises total Area ofAgricultural Establishments and total GrossValue of Agricultural Production data (hereafterlsquoarearsquo and lsquoGVAPrsquo) for SLAs in each of themainland States over the three-year period 199293 to 199495 A full copy of the database isavailable from the author

Annual area and GVAP data were assembledby State Statistical Division and SLA in anelectronic spreadsheet wherein a number ofsimple transformations and calculations wereundertaken First area and GVAP for each SLAwere converted to percentages of the respectiveState total for each year In the case of theGVAP data this conversion obviated the need toadjust for the effect of inflation The resultingannual percentage figures permit qualified year-to-year comparisons and analysis of temporaltrends for all SLAs It should be noted howeverthat the percentage conversions do not moderatethe effect of periodic changes to the ABS EVAOthreshold

5

which dropped from A$22 500 in199293 to A$5000 in 199394 The effect ofthis change would have been to marginallyexpand the reported GVAP in the second andthird years of the series

Second data for all three years including thepercentages were averaged to produce a single

set of figures with which to make a generalisedassessment of the significance of agriculturalproduction in peri-urban regions Normal prac-tice with agricultural data would be to base suchan average on at least five years of data so as todampen the effect of annual fluctuations in pro-duction However additional years of SLA-leveldata were not readily available at the time whenthe database was developed Although parts ofAustralia were drought-affected during theseyears which may have temporarily inflated thevalue of peri-urban production the three-yearaverages provide a more reliable indication oflong-run GVAP than a single year of data

One unintended advantage of this limitedselection of years was that it avoided most of thelocal government amalgamation activity thatoccurred in a number of Australian States inthe mid-1990s Accordingly only a handful ofSLAs had to be adjusted because of changesto LGA boundaries In most cases these weresimple amalgamations of whole LGAs and wereaccommodated in the database by combiningarea and GVAP data for the affected SLAs in thepre-amalgamation years

Following these basic transformations of thedata spreadsheet formulae were written to sumthe average area and GVAP figures for all peri-urban SLAs in the database Three scenarios werecalculated on the basis of different perspectiveson the peri-urban phenomenon as discussed inthe previous section These scenarios are sum-marised on a State-by-State basis in Table 1

Scenario A describes agriculture in peri-metropolitan regions using only those SLAsidentified by McKenzie (1996) in

Beyond theSuburbs

Since this leaves a residual component ofmetropolitan fringe agriculture unaccounted fora second peri-metropolitan version Scenario Bwas also calculated This uses total area and GVAPdata for the Metropolitan Statistical Division(MSD) in each State plus any SLAs identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

that lie outside the MSDScenario C describes total agricultural productionin peri-urban regions in each State on the basisof Scenario B plus all selected non-metropolitanSLAs A list of SLAs used in the differentscenario calculations is available from the author

Findings

The research method described above and sum-marised under Scenario C in Table 1 suggests thatperi-urban regions comprise a little less than 3of the total land base used for agriculture in thefive mainland States but generate almost 25

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of total GVAP Amongst the States the valuefigures are surprisingly uniform ranging fromQueenslandrsquos 221 to South Australiarsquos 258of total GVAP from peri-urban regions In con-trast there is a marked variation in the areafigures with Victoria comprising the highestproportion of Area of Agricultural Establish-ments in regions of peri-urban influence (133)and Queensland the lowest (17) This varia-tion can be attributed to factors such as

1 the size of each State relative to its popula-tion and pattern of urban and regional devel-opment and

2 the proportion of each State in agronomicallyfavourable zones

Scenarios A and B in Table 1 also show consid-erable inter-state variation in the significance ofthe peri-metropolitan regions While the Sydneyperi-metropolitan region comprises only a frac-tion of the total peri-urban area in New South

Wales (NSW) and generates about a third of itstotal peri-urban GVAP the Adelaide regioncomprises nearly all of South Australiarsquos peri-urban sector The likely reasons for this varia-tion are similar to those listed above namely

1 the pattern of urban and regional develop-ment in each State and in particular thedegree of primacy in its urban system

2 the size of the peri-metropolitan (exurban)region identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

and 3 the extent to which the peri-metropolitan

region has been already built out or is other-wise unavailable to agriculture

A closer look at the value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions

Table 1 provides a range of insights about agri-culture in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions but onestands out above all the others Putting asidequestions about the area of agriculture subject

Table 1 Average area and value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions Australia (excluding Tasmania NorthernTerritory and Australian Capital Territory) 199293ndash1994951 (Sources Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) AGSTATS (v22) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo71170 Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) IRDB96i (Integrated Regional DataBase) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo13530)

Scenario hellip A Peri-metropolitan agriculture 12

B Peri-metropolitan agriculture 23

C Total agriculture in peri-urban regions4

Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000)

NSW 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741Peri-Urban 89 472 426 426 90 537 448 625 2 932 413 1 351 697 of total 015 707 015 744 486 2240Qld 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540Peri-Urban 970 377 664 398 975 393 718 962 2 760 785 1 235 243 of total 064 1291 065 1397 171 2210SA 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913Peri-Urban 1 199 104 571 791 1 204 502 598 586 1 204 502 598 586 of total 212 2469 213 2581 213 2581Vic 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131Peri-Urban 735 050 819 817 743 184 855 047 2 005 878 1 464 887 of total 556 1534 563 1601 1334 2550WA 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006Peri-Urban 1 263 706 459 320 1 266 554 493 347 2 703 068 860 996 of total 105 1291 106 1390 220 2358TOTAL 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331Peri-Urban 4 257 710 2 941 752 4 280 169 3 114 566 11 606 646 5 511 408 of total 108 1322 109 1400 295 2477

Notes 1 Figures are based on data for Total Area of Agricultural Establishments and Total Gross Value of Agricultural Production averaged over the period 199293 to 199495

2 Calculated on the basis of all ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by McKenzie (1996)3 Calculated on the basis of the Metropolitan Statistical Division total plus any ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by

McKenzie (1996) outside the MSD4 Calculated on the basis of Scenario B plus all non-metropolitan SLAs shown on Figure 1

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to peri-urban influence in each State and therelative significance of the peri-metropolitanregions the figures on GVAP in Scenario C areremarkable They easily exceed the US experi-ence cited above although that comparisonneeds qualification They also fly in the face ofconventional wisdom about agriculture in Aus-traliarsquos peri-urban regions This is perhaps bestillustrated by the coverage of ABARErsquos FarmSurvey Report series an annual survey ofmainly broadacre industries that with only rareexceptions has ignored the lsquosmallrsquo and intensiveindustries situated close to major populationcentres The figures in Table 1 seriously chal-lenge that conventional wisdom

Of course the caveats discussed in the previ-ous section need to be reiterated here Thespatial basis of the calculations may be too gen-erous in some respects and hence exaggeratewhat is counted as being subject to peri-urbaninfluence Nevertheless there is a further bodyof evidence that offsets any spatial exaggerationin the research method and suggests the figureof 25 of GVAP may be conservative and insome cases by a wide margin

Published research by agriculture agenciesand local government in several States shows thatABS data consistently and substantially under-state value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions NSW Agriculture found that totalGVAP for the Sydney Statistical Division in199091 was A$461 million according to ABSdata but closer to A$850 million according totheir own ground-based surveys (Kennedy1993 2) Subsequent revisions of those surveyshave put the figure at A$940 million (NSWAgriculture 1995 15ndash16) and lsquoat least A$1billionrsquo (NSW Agriculture 1998 14) suggestinga discrepancy of about 100 In the HornsbyShire north of Sydney the same survey methodfound a discrepancy of almost 350 betweenABS data (A$22 million in 199091) and depart-mental figures (A$983 million in 1994) forGVAP (Hornsby Shire Council 1996 76) Thetime-lag between the 199091 ABS Census andthe NSW Agriculture ground surveys wouldexplain only a fraction of these differences

Similar discrepancies have been reported inVictoria South Australia and Western AustraliaFor example a study for the Shires of YarraRanges and Nillumbik northeast of Melbournereported a difference of more than 200between ABS data (A$195 million in 199899)and industry-derived figures (A$640 million in2000) for GVAP (Langworthy and Hacket

2000 11) This is consistent with Gardnerrsquos ear-lier observations about the roughly comparableUpper Yarra Valley and Dandenong Rangesregion in the early 1990s At that time ABS data(A$88 million) were also widely at variancewith industry-based estimates (A$275 million)(Gardner 1994 99) Both reports identify theflower nursery and wine grape industries as keyelements of the under-reporting

Other reports provide insights about particu-lar industries and sectors For example in West-ern Australia Kininmonth (2000 2) citing vanGool and Runge (1999) notes discrepanciesranging from 10 for fruit production to 50for vegetables Similarly a survey of productionon the Northern Adelaide Plains (NAP) whichincludes the Virginia horticulture district madethe following observations

ABS statistics for NAP vegetable flower andnursery industries are inaccurate Industryestimates and field surveys suggest thatactual production is 25 above ABS datafor field vegetables and 50 above ABS datafor glasshouse vegetable crops

ABS statistics indicate the flower andnursery industry on the NAP is valued atapproximately $2 m Industry data suggeststhe NAP flower industry is worth $10ndash12 mwhile the nursery industry is valued atapproximately $10 m (Primary IndustriesSouth Australia 1993 16)

These findings are even more remarkable thanthe figures in Table 1 Not only do they tend tooffset concerns about spatial exaggeration in theresearch method the scale of the discrepanciesif they are repeated elsewhere raise the possibil-ity that Australiarsquos peri-urban regions may wellproduce more than 25 of GVAP In the proc-ess these findings also beg important questionsabout the credibility of the Agricultural Censusand about its usefulness to decision-makers ingovernment and industry It needs to be said thatthese questions do not impinge on the accuracyof reporting about mainstream agriculture asexplained below there are good reasons forbelieving the accuracy of ABS data on broada-cre industries Nevertheless there are severalaspects of the Census that are especially prob-lematic for agriculture in peri-urban regions

Most of the discrepancies described abovewould be the result of simple under-countingin the Agricultural Census in other wordsinstances where the Census has failed to recordthe full extent of agricultural activity on the

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ground

6

This can take a number of forms Forexample failure to account for sequential crop-ping where two three or four crops are grownon the same land each year as is the case inHornsby (Hornsby Shire Council 1996) mayexplain some of the discrepancies in the vegeta-ble sector Alternatively the self-administerednature of the Census leaves room for some pro-ducers to go missing entirely In the mid-1990sNSW Agriculture found that while ABS statis-tics on vegetable production in the BlacktownLGA were based on census returns from 30growers their own records identified 182growers Predictably this caused a considerabledifference between the ABS figures for GVAPin Blacktown (A$1438 million) and thedepartmental estimate (A$1955 million) (DavidMason NSW Agriculture personal communica-tion 8 November 1996)

Under-counting in its various forms is notaltogether surprising in peri-urban regions Thediverse dynamic and fragmented nature of theselandscapes is a different proposition to broada-cre agriculture to which the Census is gearedThis is likely to render many primary productionactivities invisible to a remotely-administeredcensus which relies heavily on producersrsquo coop-eration and the volunteering of information Inthis context under-counting may be exacerbatedby social factors such as the high numbers ofproducers from non-English-speaking back-grounds (Primary Industries South Australia1993 NSW Agriculture 1995) It has also beenobserved that many producers in peri-urbanregions operate in the cash economy and wouldbe disinclined to participate in the Census(Frank Kelleher University of Western Sydneypersonal communication 25 July 1996)

7

Evidence such as this suggests that agricul-

ture in peri-urban regions is much more likelythan agriculture generally to be affected byunder-counting in the Census Indeed most ofthe traditional broadacre industries have central-ised marketing structures andor bulk-handlingsystems that leave little scope for the volume ofproduction and hence its value to be misrepre-sented However under-counting is not the onlyway in which value of production in peri-urbanregions may be misrepresented Houston (1998)has also noted potential problems associated with

1 the EVAO threshold the effect of which isheavily concentrated in peri-urban regions

2 the use of State average prices to calculatevalue of production which may ignore sig-

nificant regional disparities in prices receivedfor some commodities and

3 the reporting of gross values which fail toidentify important regional differences inmarketing costs such as transport

Against this background the findings summa-rised in Table 1 leave the reader to speculate onthe proportion of GVAP that is actually gener-ated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions The nec-essarily qualified finding of 25 is a remarkablefigure Even a reduction to say 20 to allowfor any spatial exaggeration in the researchmethod or the effect of drought in the surveyyears would still have important implicationsfor policy-makers However the intriguingpossibility that more than a quarter of total grossvalue of agricultural production comes fromperi-urban regions would force some changes inthe way we think about agriculture in Australiaand about how we regard peri-urban regionsIn the circumstances though it is best to leavethe evidence with all its qualifications andlimitations to speak for itself

On this point it also needs to be emphasisedthat the findings presented here are insufficientto enable any definitive conclusions about thewider significance of agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions GVAP data say little aboutthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences Neither is it possible to detectin these data the effect that various direct andindirect subsidies may have had on agriculturalproduction or on the levels of farm debt under-lying that production These are questions thatneed further investigation although they couldequally be asked about agriculture generallyand in regard to subsidies about urban fringehousing development too

Answers to such questions would require amajor economic modelling project well beyondthe scope of a modest research paper So for themoment the findings presented here need to bekept in perspective Nevertheless recent nationalanalysis of the spatial distribution of farm prof-itability measured on a profit-at-full-equity basissuggests that peri-urban regions may indeed beeconomically significant for reasons other thansimple GVAP (NLWRA 2002 Figure 116)

New perspectives on peri-urban agriculture and peri-urban regions

The findings of the previous section have someunsettling implications for the ways in which

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agriculture peri-urban agriculture and peri-urbanregions are viewed in Australia Even if it is notpossible to be precise about the extent of theseimplications there is a clear case for closerexamination Such an examination should not belimited to the obvious task of better accountingfor agriculture in peri-urban regions It alsoseems worth inquiring into how public policyand the instruments on which policy-makersrely such as the Agricultural Census mighthave contributed to this situation and how bothmight need to change This section briefly laysout some themes for future consideration

Implications for public policy

Twelve years ago the House of RepresentativesStanding Committee for Long Term Strategiessuggested that Australia is lsquolike an archipelagomdash islands of closer settlement surrounded by anocean of arid or marginalised landrsquo (AustraliaParliament 1992 5) This metaphor was intendedto emphasise the extent to which Australia is anurbanised nation but it also made an importantpoint about underlying environmental circumstances

Five years later a submission to an inquiryinto Ecologically Sustainable Land Management(ESLM) sought to convey a similar messageusing a series of maps illustrating agronomicpotential land degradation current agriculturalland use population distribution and projectedpopulation growth (Houston 1997) Viewedsynoptically these maps reinforce the archipel-ago metaphor and show how Australiarsquos room tomanoeuvre with respect to its land resources ismore constrained than first appearances mightsuggest In particular the maps show that themost favourable components of the nationrsquosnatural resource endowment and the vast bulkof its population are crowded together into sec-tions of the eastern southern and south-westerncoastal strips Variations on this theme havebeen expounded previously by Nix (1990) andCocks (1992) and acknowledged by theNational Population Council (1992)

These relatively small areas of overlappingdemands are of course largely coincident withthe peri-urban regions shown in Figure 1 wherepresumably competition for resources is great-est This puts peri-urban regions at the heartof a national tug-of-war albeit undeclared overthe allocation of key natural resources It alsostrongly implicates peri-urban agriculture whichis inextricably linked to land supply in theseregions in the unfolding pattern of developmentand resource use occurring there If we now add

to this picture the findings about GVAP set outin the previous section peri-urban regions andthe agriculture that occurs there begin to assumea previously unheralded strategic significance

There are important consequences in all ofthis for Australiarsquos future options regardingagricultural development urban and regionaldevelopment and ultimately sustainable devel-opment Because peri-urban regions will be thesite of significant population growth for theforeseeable future these competing interestsneed to be more actively and deliberately medi-ated Amongst other things successfully mediat-ing the interface between urbanisation andagriculture will become increasingly importantFailure to do so risks more of the agriculturalland-use conflict that characterised the peri-urban regions of several States during the pastdecade (Langworthy and Hacket 2000 Hendersonand Epps 2001 Henderson 2003)

However an appreciation of the significanceof peri-urban regions and peri-urban agricultureis routinely absent from public policy delibera-tions and data collection Both themes wereignored in the Ecologically Sustainable Devel-opment (ESD) and ESLM investigations of the1990s (Australia ESDSC 1992 Industry Com-mission 1999) and as described above both theABS Agricultural Census and ABARE researchprovide limited insights on the topic Morerecently the National Land and Water ResourcesAudit (NLWRA) has also been silent on peri-urban issues This was despite including mapssuch as that showing the spatial distribution ofprofit-at-full-equity which clearly implicatesperi-urban regions (NLWRA 2002)

The findings of this research suggest the needfor a more fine-grained informed and lesstaken-for-granted approach to peri-urban mat-ters in Australian public policy A full analysisof why this topic is so often submerged in policydeliberations would require more space than isavailable here but two factors stand out Thefirst is the tendency in the agricultural sectortowards aspatial rather than spatially-basedanalysis and reporting The second is the moregeneral influence of sectoralism in public policy

Most of the routine analysis and reporting ofAustralian agriculture especially as it relates tovalue of production has a strong industry orsectoral orientation with little focus on geo-graphic entities smaller than the States (see forexample NLWRA 2001 Table 81) This risksinstitutional blindness to events and circum-stances at the regional and local level such as

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those described here There is some evidenceof emerging new pseudo-spatial frames for ana-lysis such as agro-ecological regions (ABS1996) and Barrrsquos (2002) social typology of rurallandscapes However even these suffer fromaggregation or abstraction and fail to get closeto the detail of local situations To avoid institu-tional blindness spatially based analysis atsub-regional and local levels is critical

The fact that analysis and reporting so oftenignore peri-urban regions can in turn be attrib-uted to the influence of sectoralism in publicpolicy Sectoral policy networks set the contextfor how policy issues are understood and dealtwith including what gets measured (Bell1992) For major sectors that have their ownpolicy networks this poses no problems How-ever minor sectors and sub-sectors that lie at theedge of policy networks literally or figurativelywill tend to suffer a deficit of analysis and polit-ical attention Viewed this way the problem forperi-urban development issues is that they sitawkwardly between the policy networks of theurban development and agricultural sectors(Houston 1995) Policy-makers cannot changethis fact of life but they can be mindful of itsconsequences The findings of the previoussection illustrate the importance of so being

Implications for the Agricultural Census

Against this background the role of the ABSAgricultural Census appears crucial It is theonly feasible source of standardised time-seriesdata suitable for monitoring agriculture includ-ing peri-urban agriculture at a range of spatialscales As such it is central to strategic intelli-gence about agriculture and vital to informedpolicy-making for industry development andresource management However in its currentform the Census is highly problematic Besideits credibility problems in peri-urban regionsrecent changes to ABS data collection mean thatthe Census has become even less lsquofriendlyrsquo toagriculture in peri-urban regions

Since 199798 the ABS has collected agricul-tural data by way of an annual sample-basedsurvey with a full census every five yearsAlthough satisfactory for surveying agriculturein broadacre regions sampling is unsuited to thediversity and scale of agriculture in peri-urbanregions This might mean that in four years outof five data on agriculture in peri-urban regionsare even more unreliable than the informationwhich the full census ordinarily provides In factthe situation is worse The statistical limitations

of sampling mean that for four years out of fiveagricultural data are now simply not produced atthe SLA level This gives an extra layer ofmeaning to institutional blindness Not only isagriculture in peri-urban regions submerged bya preoccupation with aspatial industries andsectors it is now systematically excluded fromofficial reporting for 80 of the time

These circumstances suggest that there is aneed for serious thinking about how the ABSdeals with agriculture in peri-urban regions Fora diverse and dynamic sector that producesaround 25 of Australiarsquos GVAP the inherentproblems of the Census are bad enough How-ever limiting the insights that it can provide tofive-yearly snapshots seems completely inade-quate at a time when States are seeking to adoptan increasingly strategic approach to their foodsectors

8

It throws into question the extent towhich agricultural policy in Australia can bedescribed as well-informed

Fortunately there is also some positive newson this front There is increasing acknowledg-ment by ABS staff of the problems with dataon agriculture in peri-urban regions (MichaelVardon ABS personal communication 5 April2002) There is also the emerging possibility ofthe geocoding of ABS data (Randall and Barson2001) which raises the prospect of using aspatial frame of analysis that more closelyapproximates the true extent of peri-urban influenceBoth developments coincide with acknowledg-ment of the need for better information aboutthe small farm sector at a recent workshop forrural policy-makers (Tonts and Black 2002)and a National Audit of Peri-urban Agriculturesponsored by RIRDC

These circumstances hold some promise for acollaborative re-think about the ways and meansof collecting and presenting data on agriculturein Australiarsquos peri-urban regions This wouldbe welcome A better understanding of thisoverlooked sector is necessary for informedpublic policy-making both in the agriculturesector and in those regions that are host tosome of Australiarsquos major sustainability issues

Conclusions

This paper presents a provisional analysis of thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions Using Agricultural Censusdata and a qualified but not unreasonable spa-tial frame the analysis suggests that peri-urbanregions generate about 25 of Australiarsquos totalGVAP from less than 3 of the agricultural land

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base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

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June 2005

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43(2)209ndash223

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2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

211

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

paper is concerned with agriculture in peri-urban regions rather than the peri-urban phe-nomenon

per se

it is not necessary to rehearsethe details of that literature here However tounderstand the spatial frame used to calculatethe value of agricultural production in thefollowing section several key sources need tobe mentioned and briefly discussed

Peri-metropolitan regions

A national inquiry into

Population Issues andAustraliarsquos Future

found that lsquonon-metropolitanpopulation [growth] has been strongly spatiallyconcentrated at or just beyond the limits of com-muting around the major cities and along theeastern and southeastern coasts of mainlandAustraliarsquo (National Population Council 199262) Maher and Stimson (1994) confirmed thisfinding when they identified peri-metropolitanregions along with the adjacent outer suburbs ofmetropolitan areas and accessible high amenitycoastal areas as the dominant regions of abso-lute (numerical) population growth nationallyThey noted that lsquo[e]ven in the slowest growingregions such as South Australia and Tasmaniathere are parts of the metropolitan peripheryundergoing substantial population increasesrsquo(Maher and Stimson 1994 37) At about thesame time Bell (1995) conducted detailedresearch into internal migration patterns aroundthe country and produced striking evidence ofmovement to these same regions

Taking its cue from these findings the thenBureau of Immigration Multicultural and Popu-lation Research (BIMPR) commissioned a specialreport on population growth in peri-urban or asits author described them exurban regions

Beyond the Suburbs

(McKenzie 1996) exam-ined the causes dimensions and characteristicsof population growth in the exurban regions ofthe five mainland capital cities It found that theperi-urban phenomenon defined according toABS journey-to-work data extends up to 100kilometres from the central business district(CBD) of each city (McKenzie 1996 6) Onthis basis the report identified and mapped theLocal Government Areas (LGAs) that comprisethe five major exurban regions

Significantly

Beyond the Suburbs

also foundevidence of significant self-containment of thelabour force in these regions In other wordsmany exurban residents have exurban jobs andare not long-distance CBD commuters Explana-tions advanced for this include the attractivenessof peri-urban localities to self-employed people

changes in communications technology that affectwork practices and the continuing outward relo-cation of business and industry from the innercity to outer suburban and exurban sites (Belland Maher 1995 McKenzie 1996) This findingsuggests a greater degree of functional separa-tion between peri-metropolitan and metropolitanregions and especially the CBD than has tradi-tionally been thought to be the case

Although it raises questions as to how theseregions should be defined in future self-containment does help to explain the consider-able size of the regions identified as exurban in

Beyond the Suburbs

Rather than being the nor-mal length of commuter trips a distance of 100kilometres is the generally observed maximumextent of exurban activity This also lendsweight to claims by North American researchersthat peri-metropolitan regions are emerging as afundamentally new form of settlement pattern aclearly discernible and increasingly importantlsquomiddle landscapersquo between the (sub)urban andrural (Davis

et al

1994 46) Burnley andMurphy (1995) have queried the applicability ofthis thesis to Australia noting some importantdifferences but that was before the evidence onself-containment came to light

The peri-urban phenomenon in non-metropolitan regions

Because of the historical primacy of the capitalcities (Australia Parliament 1992) the peri-urban phenomenon in Australia is dominated byits metropolitan-orientated form This is evidentfrom the focus of most peri-urban research(Burnley and Murphy 1995 Ford 1997 Bunkerand Holloway 2001) However expressions ofthe phenomenon are not limited to metropolitanregions For example research conducted forBIMPR during the mid-1990s suggests thatperi-urban influence around some of Australiarsquoslarger provincial cities may extend as far as30ndash40 kilometres (Fiona McKenzie BIMPRpersonal communication 30 July 1996) Anyserious attempt to form a national view of theperi-urban phenomenon also needs to accountfor these non-metropolitan forms

Although acknowledged obliquely in reviewsof planning and development at the local level(Ng 1993 Edols-Meeves and Knox 1996)there is little published research that sheds lighton the dimensions of peri-urban influence in non-metropolitan regions Certainly there is nothingequivalent to

Beyond the Suburbs

Neverthelesshigh population growth rates in areas of relatively

212

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43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

high population density provide a clue to itslikely extent

Research on population growth at the Statist-ical Local Area (SLA) level helps identify threenon-metropolitan forms of likely peri-urbaninfluence that need to be included in the reckon-ing Maher and Stimson identified high amenityareas lsquoall along the eastern and south-easterncoasts as well as hellip on the south-western coastrsquoas being significant sites of population expan-sion (1994 37ndash39) This is the same pattern ofgrowth that has more recently been termedlsquocoastal driftrsquo (Productivity Commission 1999)They note that lsquo[e]ven in locations more remotefrom the metropolitan areas some of these areasare creating their own urbanisation dynamic helliprsquo(Maher and Stimson 1994 37) For the purposesof this exercise it was assumed that most of theSLAs they identify in this category especiallythose comprising larger towns or contiguouswith metropolitan regions are also experiencinga degree of peri-urban influence

Maher and Stimson also identified as signific-ant a range of inland cities and larger towns aswell as some emerging agricultural districtsexperiencing expansion in irrigated or newintensive industries At the time of their investi-gations prior to the 1996 census the formerincluded the likes of Armidale BallaratBathurst Bendigo Dubbo Lismore Toow-oomba and Wodonga (Maher and Stimson 199438) If the peri-urban phenomenon exists at alloutside the peri-metropolitan regions it willexist around these large established provincialcentres the so-called lsquosponge citiesrsquo (Produc-tivity Commission 1999)

3

The latter groupincluded agricultural districts such as the BegaValley Margaret River and Mudgee (Maher andStimson 1994 38)

Towards a spatial frame for analysis of agriculture in peri-urban regions

Combining these various peri-metropolitan andnon-metropolitan perspectives enables the peri-urban phenomenon in the mainland States ofAustralia to be mapped on a provisional basis

4

Specifically Figure 1 does this using

1 all peri-metropolitan regions identified byMcKenzie (1996) in

Beyond the Suburbs

and2 those non-metropolitan SLAs identified by

Maher and Stimson (1994) where populationgrowth rates were greater than 10 over theperiod 1986ndash1991 and which broadly corre-spond with maps of national population

distribution and changing density (ABS1996 232)

The resulting map is only indicative of the likelyextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Aus-tralia and it needs to be qualified on a numberof counts First it has been necessary to useSLAs as the unit of analysis and as a corollaryto assume that peri-urban influence is uniformwithin them While there is evidence to supportthe delineation of the peri-metropolitan regionson this basis (McKenzie 1996) it is problematicfor some of the non-metropolitan SLAs Forthose that include a large provincial city it isreasonable to assume that peri-urban influencemight extend across most of the local govern-ment area especially given the BIMPR findingsreferred to above However for SLAs that donot contain large population centres this maysignificantly exaggerate the extent of peri-urbaninfluence

Second there is an assumption that popula-tion growth in the non-metropolitan SLAs is notlimited to townships but extends into the hinter-land of those towns This can be resolved in partby reference to ABS data that describe popula-tion and development outside townships andsmall settlements the so-called lsquorural balancersquoFor example analysis of population growth inAdelaidersquos peri-urban region by Ford (1997)reveals that the rural balance component thereaccounted for approximately 25 of the regionrsquostotal population growth in the period 1976ndash1996 Likewise Edols-Meeves and Knox (1996)found that 25 of new dwelling commence-ments in SLAs on the NSW north coast werelocated in rural areas Figure 1 assumes asimilarly significant percentage of populationgrowth and development outside of townshipsin all selected non-metropolitan SLAs Hereagain though this may exaggerate the extentof peri-urban influence in some cases

Third there is an assumption here that theperi-urban phenomenon is linked to populationgrowth in particular that it is limited to SLAsexperiencing high rates of growth However asGraham (1994) has shown in relation to Hobartlow rates of population growth may mask sub-stantial social change and development activityon the ground Net change in SLA populationas used here out of necessity is only a crudeindicator of the presence of peri-urban influ-ence It reveals nothing about population turno-ver and its spatially variable expressions nordoes it indicate the practical implications of

P Houston

Re-valuing the F

ringe

213

copy Institute of A

ustralian Geographers 2005

Figure 1 Statistical Local Areas subject to peri-urban influence Australia 1994 Refer text for explanation

214

Geographical Research

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June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

occupancy change in rural and peri-urban areasThe latter is especially relevant to any consider-ation of agriculture in peri-urban regions as thelsquoright-to-farmrsquo debate demonstrates Consequentlythere may be a number of apparently slow-growth SLAs including some of the lsquospongecitiesrsquo (Productivity Commission 1999) whichdo not appear in Figure 1 but arguably shouldIn this regard the map may understate the extentof peri-urban influence

Fourth given that it is based on decade-olddata and SLA boundaries Figure 1 may seemsomewhat out of date Population researchconducted since the 1996 census (Beer 1999Productivity Commission 1999) suggests thatsome SLAs have dropped out of the non-metropolitan growth categories and others havecome in More recent evidence on populationchange nationally also points to a significanttrend towards inner-city SLAs and a slackeningof growth rates in some peri-urban regions(ABS 2002) However mindful of the previousparagraph it is questionable whether analysis ofthe peri-urban phenomenon would be improvedby access to the very latest data on populationchange It might also be argued that a frameof reference from the most recent period ofacknowledged peri-urban expansion is moreuseful than one established now On balanceany expansion of peri-urban influence in the pastdecade is probably off-set by the recent slowingof growth pressures in those regions

These qualifications aside Figure 1 is a rea-sonable representation of the likely extent of theperi-urban phenomenon in the five mainlandStates The SLA is a standard unit of analysisfor a great deal of population research and inany case is the smallest geographic unit forwhich Agricultural Census data are available Ifit is at all possible to calculate the value of agri-cultural production in Australiarsquos peri-urbanregions it will have to be done on an SLA basisOther assumptions about the presence or other-wise of peri-urban influence are unavoidableonce the SLA is adopted as the unit of analysisSome readers might want to nominate SLAs tobe added to or removed from the map but the neteffect is unlikely to be substantial Shortcomingssuch as these are reasonable in an exploratoryundertaking of this type

Notwithstanding this conclusion any inter-pretation of peri-urban influence based solely ondemographic variables will always be less thanideal for examining agriculture in peri-urbanregions For any analysis of their agricultural

dimensions peri-urban regions are best under-stood as rural districts under the influence ofurban property markets (Nelson 1990) It is thedirect and indirect consequences for farming ofthis real estate factor which includes demandfrom the self-containment and weekend retreatsectors (Trevor Budge and Associates 1994McKenzie 1996) that differentiates peri-urbanagriculture from agriculture generally In otherwords in attempting to understand the extent ofagriculture subject to peri-urban influence it isnot sufficient simply to look at primary indica-tors such as population growth and commutingpatterns What ultimately requires mapping arethe secondary consequences of those phenom-ena namely the actual or anticipated conversionof farmland to non-farm uses and the implica-tions of this for agriculture in the meantime

In a researcherrsquos ideal world it might be pos-sible to map peri-urban agriculture on the basisof the lsquourban price shadowrsquo (Krushelnicki andBell 1989) and surveys of farmersrsquo perceivedlsquotime left for agriculturersquo (Bryant 1974) Thiswould provide a spatial frame defined in termsrelevant to agricultural investment and develop-ment However such an approach would behighly resource intensive and beyond the meansof most researchers Over the medium term asomewhat more sophisticated frame may befeasible This could perhaps be defined withreference to building approvals occupancychange and employment data for the rural bal-ance section of SLAs and possibly at the levelof the Census Collection District For the shortterm though Figure 1 or something like it isthe only practical starting point for researcherswanting to analyse agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

The value of agricultural production in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions

An early-1990s review of rural policy issues inthe United States revealed that lsquofarming in andnear 12 of the nationrsquos major metropolitan areas[comprised] only 5 per cent of Americarsquosfarmland [yet generated] 17 per cent of allagricultural salesrsquo It was also noted that lsquowhilethese areas account for only 20 per cent of thenationrsquos population they contain 40 per cent ofits [population] growthrsquo (Lapping 1994 12)

These statistics call to mind the fact that nosimilar analysis has been conducted for Austra-lian agriculture While the ABS has for manyyears collected the raw data with which toconduct such analyses the insights we have are

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

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copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

limited to those found in undergraduate text-books and atlases (NATMAP 1980 Cooper1982 Scott 1987) Whatever the reasons forthis situation it will suffice here to conclude thatthere is little evidence of research that seeks toanalyse the spatial pattern of agricultural pro-duction value in Australia rather than merely todescribe it in the broadest of terms

An opportunity to shed light on this subjectarose in 1996 as part of postgraduate researchexamining the public policy treatment of peri-urban agriculture in Australia In the course ofthat work it was necessary to examine the valueof agricultural production in peri-urban regionsrelative to agriculture generally The next twoparts of this section describe how that work wasundertaken and summarise its findings The finalpart presents some contrasting perspectiveswhich raise questions about how much is reallyknown regarding agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

Research method

Using data from the ABS Agricultural Census asimple database was constructed for analysingregional variation in the area and value ofagricultural production for the five mainlandStates The database comprises total Area ofAgricultural Establishments and total GrossValue of Agricultural Production data (hereafterlsquoarearsquo and lsquoGVAPrsquo) for SLAs in each of themainland States over the three-year period 199293 to 199495 A full copy of the database isavailable from the author

Annual area and GVAP data were assembledby State Statistical Division and SLA in anelectronic spreadsheet wherein a number ofsimple transformations and calculations wereundertaken First area and GVAP for each SLAwere converted to percentages of the respectiveState total for each year In the case of theGVAP data this conversion obviated the need toadjust for the effect of inflation The resultingannual percentage figures permit qualified year-to-year comparisons and analysis of temporaltrends for all SLAs It should be noted howeverthat the percentage conversions do not moderatethe effect of periodic changes to the ABS EVAOthreshold

5

which dropped from A$22 500 in199293 to A$5000 in 199394 The effect ofthis change would have been to marginallyexpand the reported GVAP in the second andthird years of the series

Second data for all three years including thepercentages were averaged to produce a single

set of figures with which to make a generalisedassessment of the significance of agriculturalproduction in peri-urban regions Normal prac-tice with agricultural data would be to base suchan average on at least five years of data so as todampen the effect of annual fluctuations in pro-duction However additional years of SLA-leveldata were not readily available at the time whenthe database was developed Although parts ofAustralia were drought-affected during theseyears which may have temporarily inflated thevalue of peri-urban production the three-yearaverages provide a more reliable indication oflong-run GVAP than a single year of data

One unintended advantage of this limitedselection of years was that it avoided most of thelocal government amalgamation activity thatoccurred in a number of Australian States inthe mid-1990s Accordingly only a handful ofSLAs had to be adjusted because of changesto LGA boundaries In most cases these weresimple amalgamations of whole LGAs and wereaccommodated in the database by combiningarea and GVAP data for the affected SLAs in thepre-amalgamation years

Following these basic transformations of thedata spreadsheet formulae were written to sumthe average area and GVAP figures for all peri-urban SLAs in the database Three scenarios werecalculated on the basis of different perspectiveson the peri-urban phenomenon as discussed inthe previous section These scenarios are sum-marised on a State-by-State basis in Table 1

Scenario A describes agriculture in peri-metropolitan regions using only those SLAsidentified by McKenzie (1996) in

Beyond theSuburbs

Since this leaves a residual component ofmetropolitan fringe agriculture unaccounted fora second peri-metropolitan version Scenario Bwas also calculated This uses total area and GVAPdata for the Metropolitan Statistical Division(MSD) in each State plus any SLAs identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

that lie outside the MSDScenario C describes total agricultural productionin peri-urban regions in each State on the basisof Scenario B plus all selected non-metropolitanSLAs A list of SLAs used in the differentscenario calculations is available from the author

Findings

The research method described above and sum-marised under Scenario C in Table 1 suggests thatperi-urban regions comprise a little less than 3of the total land base used for agriculture in thefive mainland States but generate almost 25

216

Geographical Research

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June 2005

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43(2)209ndash223

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of total GVAP Amongst the States the valuefigures are surprisingly uniform ranging fromQueenslandrsquos 221 to South Australiarsquos 258of total GVAP from peri-urban regions In con-trast there is a marked variation in the areafigures with Victoria comprising the highestproportion of Area of Agricultural Establish-ments in regions of peri-urban influence (133)and Queensland the lowest (17) This varia-tion can be attributed to factors such as

1 the size of each State relative to its popula-tion and pattern of urban and regional devel-opment and

2 the proportion of each State in agronomicallyfavourable zones

Scenarios A and B in Table 1 also show consid-erable inter-state variation in the significance ofthe peri-metropolitan regions While the Sydneyperi-metropolitan region comprises only a frac-tion of the total peri-urban area in New South

Wales (NSW) and generates about a third of itstotal peri-urban GVAP the Adelaide regioncomprises nearly all of South Australiarsquos peri-urban sector The likely reasons for this varia-tion are similar to those listed above namely

1 the pattern of urban and regional develop-ment in each State and in particular thedegree of primacy in its urban system

2 the size of the peri-metropolitan (exurban)region identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

and 3 the extent to which the peri-metropolitan

region has been already built out or is other-wise unavailable to agriculture

A closer look at the value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions

Table 1 provides a range of insights about agri-culture in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions but onestands out above all the others Putting asidequestions about the area of agriculture subject

Table 1 Average area and value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions Australia (excluding Tasmania NorthernTerritory and Australian Capital Territory) 199293ndash1994951 (Sources Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) AGSTATS (v22) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo71170 Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) IRDB96i (Integrated Regional DataBase) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo13530)

Scenario hellip A Peri-metropolitan agriculture 12

B Peri-metropolitan agriculture 23

C Total agriculture in peri-urban regions4

Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000)

NSW 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741Peri-Urban 89 472 426 426 90 537 448 625 2 932 413 1 351 697 of total 015 707 015 744 486 2240Qld 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540Peri-Urban 970 377 664 398 975 393 718 962 2 760 785 1 235 243 of total 064 1291 065 1397 171 2210SA 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913Peri-Urban 1 199 104 571 791 1 204 502 598 586 1 204 502 598 586 of total 212 2469 213 2581 213 2581Vic 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131Peri-Urban 735 050 819 817 743 184 855 047 2 005 878 1 464 887 of total 556 1534 563 1601 1334 2550WA 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006Peri-Urban 1 263 706 459 320 1 266 554 493 347 2 703 068 860 996 of total 105 1291 106 1390 220 2358TOTAL 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331Peri-Urban 4 257 710 2 941 752 4 280 169 3 114 566 11 606 646 5 511 408 of total 108 1322 109 1400 295 2477

Notes 1 Figures are based on data for Total Area of Agricultural Establishments and Total Gross Value of Agricultural Production averaged over the period 199293 to 199495

2 Calculated on the basis of all ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by McKenzie (1996)3 Calculated on the basis of the Metropolitan Statistical Division total plus any ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by

McKenzie (1996) outside the MSD4 Calculated on the basis of Scenario B plus all non-metropolitan SLAs shown on Figure 1

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

217

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

to peri-urban influence in each State and therelative significance of the peri-metropolitanregions the figures on GVAP in Scenario C areremarkable They easily exceed the US experi-ence cited above although that comparisonneeds qualification They also fly in the face ofconventional wisdom about agriculture in Aus-traliarsquos peri-urban regions This is perhaps bestillustrated by the coverage of ABARErsquos FarmSurvey Report series an annual survey ofmainly broadacre industries that with only rareexceptions has ignored the lsquosmallrsquo and intensiveindustries situated close to major populationcentres The figures in Table 1 seriously chal-lenge that conventional wisdom

Of course the caveats discussed in the previ-ous section need to be reiterated here Thespatial basis of the calculations may be too gen-erous in some respects and hence exaggeratewhat is counted as being subject to peri-urbaninfluence Nevertheless there is a further bodyof evidence that offsets any spatial exaggerationin the research method and suggests the figureof 25 of GVAP may be conservative and insome cases by a wide margin

Published research by agriculture agenciesand local government in several States shows thatABS data consistently and substantially under-state value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions NSW Agriculture found that totalGVAP for the Sydney Statistical Division in199091 was A$461 million according to ABSdata but closer to A$850 million according totheir own ground-based surveys (Kennedy1993 2) Subsequent revisions of those surveyshave put the figure at A$940 million (NSWAgriculture 1995 15ndash16) and lsquoat least A$1billionrsquo (NSW Agriculture 1998 14) suggestinga discrepancy of about 100 In the HornsbyShire north of Sydney the same survey methodfound a discrepancy of almost 350 betweenABS data (A$22 million in 199091) and depart-mental figures (A$983 million in 1994) forGVAP (Hornsby Shire Council 1996 76) Thetime-lag between the 199091 ABS Census andthe NSW Agriculture ground surveys wouldexplain only a fraction of these differences

Similar discrepancies have been reported inVictoria South Australia and Western AustraliaFor example a study for the Shires of YarraRanges and Nillumbik northeast of Melbournereported a difference of more than 200between ABS data (A$195 million in 199899)and industry-derived figures (A$640 million in2000) for GVAP (Langworthy and Hacket

2000 11) This is consistent with Gardnerrsquos ear-lier observations about the roughly comparableUpper Yarra Valley and Dandenong Rangesregion in the early 1990s At that time ABS data(A$88 million) were also widely at variancewith industry-based estimates (A$275 million)(Gardner 1994 99) Both reports identify theflower nursery and wine grape industries as keyelements of the under-reporting

Other reports provide insights about particu-lar industries and sectors For example in West-ern Australia Kininmonth (2000 2) citing vanGool and Runge (1999) notes discrepanciesranging from 10 for fruit production to 50for vegetables Similarly a survey of productionon the Northern Adelaide Plains (NAP) whichincludes the Virginia horticulture district madethe following observations

ABS statistics for NAP vegetable flower andnursery industries are inaccurate Industryestimates and field surveys suggest thatactual production is 25 above ABS datafor field vegetables and 50 above ABS datafor glasshouse vegetable crops

ABS statistics indicate the flower andnursery industry on the NAP is valued atapproximately $2 m Industry data suggeststhe NAP flower industry is worth $10ndash12 mwhile the nursery industry is valued atapproximately $10 m (Primary IndustriesSouth Australia 1993 16)

These findings are even more remarkable thanthe figures in Table 1 Not only do they tend tooffset concerns about spatial exaggeration in theresearch method the scale of the discrepanciesif they are repeated elsewhere raise the possibil-ity that Australiarsquos peri-urban regions may wellproduce more than 25 of GVAP In the proc-ess these findings also beg important questionsabout the credibility of the Agricultural Censusand about its usefulness to decision-makers ingovernment and industry It needs to be said thatthese questions do not impinge on the accuracyof reporting about mainstream agriculture asexplained below there are good reasons forbelieving the accuracy of ABS data on broada-cre industries Nevertheless there are severalaspects of the Census that are especially prob-lematic for agriculture in peri-urban regions

Most of the discrepancies described abovewould be the result of simple under-countingin the Agricultural Census in other wordsinstances where the Census has failed to recordthe full extent of agricultural activity on the

218

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ground

6

This can take a number of forms Forexample failure to account for sequential crop-ping where two three or four crops are grownon the same land each year as is the case inHornsby (Hornsby Shire Council 1996) mayexplain some of the discrepancies in the vegeta-ble sector Alternatively the self-administerednature of the Census leaves room for some pro-ducers to go missing entirely In the mid-1990sNSW Agriculture found that while ABS statis-tics on vegetable production in the BlacktownLGA were based on census returns from 30growers their own records identified 182growers Predictably this caused a considerabledifference between the ABS figures for GVAPin Blacktown (A$1438 million) and thedepartmental estimate (A$1955 million) (DavidMason NSW Agriculture personal communica-tion 8 November 1996)

Under-counting in its various forms is notaltogether surprising in peri-urban regions Thediverse dynamic and fragmented nature of theselandscapes is a different proposition to broada-cre agriculture to which the Census is gearedThis is likely to render many primary productionactivities invisible to a remotely-administeredcensus which relies heavily on producersrsquo coop-eration and the volunteering of information Inthis context under-counting may be exacerbatedby social factors such as the high numbers ofproducers from non-English-speaking back-grounds (Primary Industries South Australia1993 NSW Agriculture 1995) It has also beenobserved that many producers in peri-urbanregions operate in the cash economy and wouldbe disinclined to participate in the Census(Frank Kelleher University of Western Sydneypersonal communication 25 July 1996)

7

Evidence such as this suggests that agricul-

ture in peri-urban regions is much more likelythan agriculture generally to be affected byunder-counting in the Census Indeed most ofthe traditional broadacre industries have central-ised marketing structures andor bulk-handlingsystems that leave little scope for the volume ofproduction and hence its value to be misrepre-sented However under-counting is not the onlyway in which value of production in peri-urbanregions may be misrepresented Houston (1998)has also noted potential problems associated with

1 the EVAO threshold the effect of which isheavily concentrated in peri-urban regions

2 the use of State average prices to calculatevalue of production which may ignore sig-

nificant regional disparities in prices receivedfor some commodities and

3 the reporting of gross values which fail toidentify important regional differences inmarketing costs such as transport

Against this background the findings summa-rised in Table 1 leave the reader to speculate onthe proportion of GVAP that is actually gener-ated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions The nec-essarily qualified finding of 25 is a remarkablefigure Even a reduction to say 20 to allowfor any spatial exaggeration in the researchmethod or the effect of drought in the surveyyears would still have important implicationsfor policy-makers However the intriguingpossibility that more than a quarter of total grossvalue of agricultural production comes fromperi-urban regions would force some changes inthe way we think about agriculture in Australiaand about how we regard peri-urban regionsIn the circumstances though it is best to leavethe evidence with all its qualifications andlimitations to speak for itself

On this point it also needs to be emphasisedthat the findings presented here are insufficientto enable any definitive conclusions about thewider significance of agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions GVAP data say little aboutthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences Neither is it possible to detectin these data the effect that various direct andindirect subsidies may have had on agriculturalproduction or on the levels of farm debt under-lying that production These are questions thatneed further investigation although they couldequally be asked about agriculture generallyand in regard to subsidies about urban fringehousing development too

Answers to such questions would require amajor economic modelling project well beyondthe scope of a modest research paper So for themoment the findings presented here need to bekept in perspective Nevertheless recent nationalanalysis of the spatial distribution of farm prof-itability measured on a profit-at-full-equity basissuggests that peri-urban regions may indeed beeconomically significant for reasons other thansimple GVAP (NLWRA 2002 Figure 116)

New perspectives on peri-urban agriculture and peri-urban regions

The findings of the previous section have someunsettling implications for the ways in which

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

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copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

agriculture peri-urban agriculture and peri-urbanregions are viewed in Australia Even if it is notpossible to be precise about the extent of theseimplications there is a clear case for closerexamination Such an examination should not belimited to the obvious task of better accountingfor agriculture in peri-urban regions It alsoseems worth inquiring into how public policyand the instruments on which policy-makersrely such as the Agricultural Census mighthave contributed to this situation and how bothmight need to change This section briefly laysout some themes for future consideration

Implications for public policy

Twelve years ago the House of RepresentativesStanding Committee for Long Term Strategiessuggested that Australia is lsquolike an archipelagomdash islands of closer settlement surrounded by anocean of arid or marginalised landrsquo (AustraliaParliament 1992 5) This metaphor was intendedto emphasise the extent to which Australia is anurbanised nation but it also made an importantpoint about underlying environmental circumstances

Five years later a submission to an inquiryinto Ecologically Sustainable Land Management(ESLM) sought to convey a similar messageusing a series of maps illustrating agronomicpotential land degradation current agriculturalland use population distribution and projectedpopulation growth (Houston 1997) Viewedsynoptically these maps reinforce the archipel-ago metaphor and show how Australiarsquos room tomanoeuvre with respect to its land resources ismore constrained than first appearances mightsuggest In particular the maps show that themost favourable components of the nationrsquosnatural resource endowment and the vast bulkof its population are crowded together into sec-tions of the eastern southern and south-westerncoastal strips Variations on this theme havebeen expounded previously by Nix (1990) andCocks (1992) and acknowledged by theNational Population Council (1992)

These relatively small areas of overlappingdemands are of course largely coincident withthe peri-urban regions shown in Figure 1 wherepresumably competition for resources is great-est This puts peri-urban regions at the heartof a national tug-of-war albeit undeclared overthe allocation of key natural resources It alsostrongly implicates peri-urban agriculture whichis inextricably linked to land supply in theseregions in the unfolding pattern of developmentand resource use occurring there If we now add

to this picture the findings about GVAP set outin the previous section peri-urban regions andthe agriculture that occurs there begin to assumea previously unheralded strategic significance

There are important consequences in all ofthis for Australiarsquos future options regardingagricultural development urban and regionaldevelopment and ultimately sustainable devel-opment Because peri-urban regions will be thesite of significant population growth for theforeseeable future these competing interestsneed to be more actively and deliberately medi-ated Amongst other things successfully mediat-ing the interface between urbanisation andagriculture will become increasingly importantFailure to do so risks more of the agriculturalland-use conflict that characterised the peri-urban regions of several States during the pastdecade (Langworthy and Hacket 2000 Hendersonand Epps 2001 Henderson 2003)

However an appreciation of the significanceof peri-urban regions and peri-urban agricultureis routinely absent from public policy delibera-tions and data collection Both themes wereignored in the Ecologically Sustainable Devel-opment (ESD) and ESLM investigations of the1990s (Australia ESDSC 1992 Industry Com-mission 1999) and as described above both theABS Agricultural Census and ABARE researchprovide limited insights on the topic Morerecently the National Land and Water ResourcesAudit (NLWRA) has also been silent on peri-urban issues This was despite including mapssuch as that showing the spatial distribution ofprofit-at-full-equity which clearly implicatesperi-urban regions (NLWRA 2002)

The findings of this research suggest the needfor a more fine-grained informed and lesstaken-for-granted approach to peri-urban mat-ters in Australian public policy A full analysisof why this topic is so often submerged in policydeliberations would require more space than isavailable here but two factors stand out Thefirst is the tendency in the agricultural sectortowards aspatial rather than spatially-basedanalysis and reporting The second is the moregeneral influence of sectoralism in public policy

Most of the routine analysis and reporting ofAustralian agriculture especially as it relates tovalue of production has a strong industry orsectoral orientation with little focus on geo-graphic entities smaller than the States (see forexample NLWRA 2001 Table 81) This risksinstitutional blindness to events and circum-stances at the regional and local level such as

220

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those described here There is some evidenceof emerging new pseudo-spatial frames for ana-lysis such as agro-ecological regions (ABS1996) and Barrrsquos (2002) social typology of rurallandscapes However even these suffer fromaggregation or abstraction and fail to get closeto the detail of local situations To avoid institu-tional blindness spatially based analysis atsub-regional and local levels is critical

The fact that analysis and reporting so oftenignore peri-urban regions can in turn be attrib-uted to the influence of sectoralism in publicpolicy Sectoral policy networks set the contextfor how policy issues are understood and dealtwith including what gets measured (Bell1992) For major sectors that have their ownpolicy networks this poses no problems How-ever minor sectors and sub-sectors that lie at theedge of policy networks literally or figurativelywill tend to suffer a deficit of analysis and polit-ical attention Viewed this way the problem forperi-urban development issues is that they sitawkwardly between the policy networks of theurban development and agricultural sectors(Houston 1995) Policy-makers cannot changethis fact of life but they can be mindful of itsconsequences The findings of the previoussection illustrate the importance of so being

Implications for the Agricultural Census

Against this background the role of the ABSAgricultural Census appears crucial It is theonly feasible source of standardised time-seriesdata suitable for monitoring agriculture includ-ing peri-urban agriculture at a range of spatialscales As such it is central to strategic intelli-gence about agriculture and vital to informedpolicy-making for industry development andresource management However in its currentform the Census is highly problematic Besideits credibility problems in peri-urban regionsrecent changes to ABS data collection mean thatthe Census has become even less lsquofriendlyrsquo toagriculture in peri-urban regions

Since 199798 the ABS has collected agricul-tural data by way of an annual sample-basedsurvey with a full census every five yearsAlthough satisfactory for surveying agriculturein broadacre regions sampling is unsuited to thediversity and scale of agriculture in peri-urbanregions This might mean that in four years outof five data on agriculture in peri-urban regionsare even more unreliable than the informationwhich the full census ordinarily provides In factthe situation is worse The statistical limitations

of sampling mean that for four years out of fiveagricultural data are now simply not produced atthe SLA level This gives an extra layer ofmeaning to institutional blindness Not only isagriculture in peri-urban regions submerged bya preoccupation with aspatial industries andsectors it is now systematically excluded fromofficial reporting for 80 of the time

These circumstances suggest that there is aneed for serious thinking about how the ABSdeals with agriculture in peri-urban regions Fora diverse and dynamic sector that producesaround 25 of Australiarsquos GVAP the inherentproblems of the Census are bad enough How-ever limiting the insights that it can provide tofive-yearly snapshots seems completely inade-quate at a time when States are seeking to adoptan increasingly strategic approach to their foodsectors

8

It throws into question the extent towhich agricultural policy in Australia can bedescribed as well-informed

Fortunately there is also some positive newson this front There is increasing acknowledg-ment by ABS staff of the problems with dataon agriculture in peri-urban regions (MichaelVardon ABS personal communication 5 April2002) There is also the emerging possibility ofthe geocoding of ABS data (Randall and Barson2001) which raises the prospect of using aspatial frame of analysis that more closelyapproximates the true extent of peri-urban influenceBoth developments coincide with acknowledg-ment of the need for better information aboutthe small farm sector at a recent workshop forrural policy-makers (Tonts and Black 2002)and a National Audit of Peri-urban Agriculturesponsored by RIRDC

These circumstances hold some promise for acollaborative re-think about the ways and meansof collecting and presenting data on agriculturein Australiarsquos peri-urban regions This wouldbe welcome A better understanding of thisoverlooked sector is necessary for informedpublic policy-making both in the agriculturesector and in those regions that are host tosome of Australiarsquos major sustainability issues

Conclusions

This paper presents a provisional analysis of thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions Using Agricultural Censusdata and a qualified but not unreasonable spa-tial frame the analysis suggests that peri-urbanregions generate about 25 of Australiarsquos totalGVAP from less than 3 of the agricultural land

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

221

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

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2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

212

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June 2005

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43(2)209ndash223

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high population density provide a clue to itslikely extent

Research on population growth at the Statist-ical Local Area (SLA) level helps identify threenon-metropolitan forms of likely peri-urbaninfluence that need to be included in the reckon-ing Maher and Stimson identified high amenityareas lsquoall along the eastern and south-easterncoasts as well as hellip on the south-western coastrsquoas being significant sites of population expan-sion (1994 37ndash39) This is the same pattern ofgrowth that has more recently been termedlsquocoastal driftrsquo (Productivity Commission 1999)They note that lsquo[e]ven in locations more remotefrom the metropolitan areas some of these areasare creating their own urbanisation dynamic helliprsquo(Maher and Stimson 1994 37) For the purposesof this exercise it was assumed that most of theSLAs they identify in this category especiallythose comprising larger towns or contiguouswith metropolitan regions are also experiencinga degree of peri-urban influence

Maher and Stimson also identified as signific-ant a range of inland cities and larger towns aswell as some emerging agricultural districtsexperiencing expansion in irrigated or newintensive industries At the time of their investi-gations prior to the 1996 census the formerincluded the likes of Armidale BallaratBathurst Bendigo Dubbo Lismore Toow-oomba and Wodonga (Maher and Stimson 199438) If the peri-urban phenomenon exists at alloutside the peri-metropolitan regions it willexist around these large established provincialcentres the so-called lsquosponge citiesrsquo (Produc-tivity Commission 1999)

3

The latter groupincluded agricultural districts such as the BegaValley Margaret River and Mudgee (Maher andStimson 1994 38)

Towards a spatial frame for analysis of agriculture in peri-urban regions

Combining these various peri-metropolitan andnon-metropolitan perspectives enables the peri-urban phenomenon in the mainland States ofAustralia to be mapped on a provisional basis

4

Specifically Figure 1 does this using

1 all peri-metropolitan regions identified byMcKenzie (1996) in

Beyond the Suburbs

and2 those non-metropolitan SLAs identified by

Maher and Stimson (1994) where populationgrowth rates were greater than 10 over theperiod 1986ndash1991 and which broadly corre-spond with maps of national population

distribution and changing density (ABS1996 232)

The resulting map is only indicative of the likelyextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Aus-tralia and it needs to be qualified on a numberof counts First it has been necessary to useSLAs as the unit of analysis and as a corollaryto assume that peri-urban influence is uniformwithin them While there is evidence to supportthe delineation of the peri-metropolitan regionson this basis (McKenzie 1996) it is problematicfor some of the non-metropolitan SLAs Forthose that include a large provincial city it isreasonable to assume that peri-urban influencemight extend across most of the local govern-ment area especially given the BIMPR findingsreferred to above However for SLAs that donot contain large population centres this maysignificantly exaggerate the extent of peri-urbaninfluence

Second there is an assumption that popula-tion growth in the non-metropolitan SLAs is notlimited to townships but extends into the hinter-land of those towns This can be resolved in partby reference to ABS data that describe popula-tion and development outside townships andsmall settlements the so-called lsquorural balancersquoFor example analysis of population growth inAdelaidersquos peri-urban region by Ford (1997)reveals that the rural balance component thereaccounted for approximately 25 of the regionrsquostotal population growth in the period 1976ndash1996 Likewise Edols-Meeves and Knox (1996)found that 25 of new dwelling commence-ments in SLAs on the NSW north coast werelocated in rural areas Figure 1 assumes asimilarly significant percentage of populationgrowth and development outside of townshipsin all selected non-metropolitan SLAs Hereagain though this may exaggerate the extentof peri-urban influence in some cases

Third there is an assumption here that theperi-urban phenomenon is linked to populationgrowth in particular that it is limited to SLAsexperiencing high rates of growth However asGraham (1994) has shown in relation to Hobartlow rates of population growth may mask sub-stantial social change and development activityon the ground Net change in SLA populationas used here out of necessity is only a crudeindicator of the presence of peri-urban influ-ence It reveals nothing about population turno-ver and its spatially variable expressions nordoes it indicate the practical implications of

P Houston

Re-valuing the F

ringe

213

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ustralian Geographers 2005

Figure 1 Statistical Local Areas subject to peri-urban influence Australia 1994 Refer text for explanation

214

Geographical Research

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June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

occupancy change in rural and peri-urban areasThe latter is especially relevant to any consider-ation of agriculture in peri-urban regions as thelsquoright-to-farmrsquo debate demonstrates Consequentlythere may be a number of apparently slow-growth SLAs including some of the lsquospongecitiesrsquo (Productivity Commission 1999) whichdo not appear in Figure 1 but arguably shouldIn this regard the map may understate the extentof peri-urban influence

Fourth given that it is based on decade-olddata and SLA boundaries Figure 1 may seemsomewhat out of date Population researchconducted since the 1996 census (Beer 1999Productivity Commission 1999) suggests thatsome SLAs have dropped out of the non-metropolitan growth categories and others havecome in More recent evidence on populationchange nationally also points to a significanttrend towards inner-city SLAs and a slackeningof growth rates in some peri-urban regions(ABS 2002) However mindful of the previousparagraph it is questionable whether analysis ofthe peri-urban phenomenon would be improvedby access to the very latest data on populationchange It might also be argued that a frameof reference from the most recent period ofacknowledged peri-urban expansion is moreuseful than one established now On balanceany expansion of peri-urban influence in the pastdecade is probably off-set by the recent slowingof growth pressures in those regions

These qualifications aside Figure 1 is a rea-sonable representation of the likely extent of theperi-urban phenomenon in the five mainlandStates The SLA is a standard unit of analysisfor a great deal of population research and inany case is the smallest geographic unit forwhich Agricultural Census data are available Ifit is at all possible to calculate the value of agri-cultural production in Australiarsquos peri-urbanregions it will have to be done on an SLA basisOther assumptions about the presence or other-wise of peri-urban influence are unavoidableonce the SLA is adopted as the unit of analysisSome readers might want to nominate SLAs tobe added to or removed from the map but the neteffect is unlikely to be substantial Shortcomingssuch as these are reasonable in an exploratoryundertaking of this type

Notwithstanding this conclusion any inter-pretation of peri-urban influence based solely ondemographic variables will always be less thanideal for examining agriculture in peri-urbanregions For any analysis of their agricultural

dimensions peri-urban regions are best under-stood as rural districts under the influence ofurban property markets (Nelson 1990) It is thedirect and indirect consequences for farming ofthis real estate factor which includes demandfrom the self-containment and weekend retreatsectors (Trevor Budge and Associates 1994McKenzie 1996) that differentiates peri-urbanagriculture from agriculture generally In otherwords in attempting to understand the extent ofagriculture subject to peri-urban influence it isnot sufficient simply to look at primary indica-tors such as population growth and commutingpatterns What ultimately requires mapping arethe secondary consequences of those phenom-ena namely the actual or anticipated conversionof farmland to non-farm uses and the implica-tions of this for agriculture in the meantime

In a researcherrsquos ideal world it might be pos-sible to map peri-urban agriculture on the basisof the lsquourban price shadowrsquo (Krushelnicki andBell 1989) and surveys of farmersrsquo perceivedlsquotime left for agriculturersquo (Bryant 1974) Thiswould provide a spatial frame defined in termsrelevant to agricultural investment and develop-ment However such an approach would behighly resource intensive and beyond the meansof most researchers Over the medium term asomewhat more sophisticated frame may befeasible This could perhaps be defined withreference to building approvals occupancychange and employment data for the rural bal-ance section of SLAs and possibly at the levelof the Census Collection District For the shortterm though Figure 1 or something like it isthe only practical starting point for researcherswanting to analyse agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

The value of agricultural production in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions

An early-1990s review of rural policy issues inthe United States revealed that lsquofarming in andnear 12 of the nationrsquos major metropolitan areas[comprised] only 5 per cent of Americarsquosfarmland [yet generated] 17 per cent of allagricultural salesrsquo It was also noted that lsquowhilethese areas account for only 20 per cent of thenationrsquos population they contain 40 per cent ofits [population] growthrsquo (Lapping 1994 12)

These statistics call to mind the fact that nosimilar analysis has been conducted for Austra-lian agriculture While the ABS has for manyyears collected the raw data with which toconduct such analyses the insights we have are

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limited to those found in undergraduate text-books and atlases (NATMAP 1980 Cooper1982 Scott 1987) Whatever the reasons forthis situation it will suffice here to conclude thatthere is little evidence of research that seeks toanalyse the spatial pattern of agricultural pro-duction value in Australia rather than merely todescribe it in the broadest of terms

An opportunity to shed light on this subjectarose in 1996 as part of postgraduate researchexamining the public policy treatment of peri-urban agriculture in Australia In the course ofthat work it was necessary to examine the valueof agricultural production in peri-urban regionsrelative to agriculture generally The next twoparts of this section describe how that work wasundertaken and summarise its findings The finalpart presents some contrasting perspectiveswhich raise questions about how much is reallyknown regarding agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

Research method

Using data from the ABS Agricultural Census asimple database was constructed for analysingregional variation in the area and value ofagricultural production for the five mainlandStates The database comprises total Area ofAgricultural Establishments and total GrossValue of Agricultural Production data (hereafterlsquoarearsquo and lsquoGVAPrsquo) for SLAs in each of themainland States over the three-year period 199293 to 199495 A full copy of the database isavailable from the author

Annual area and GVAP data were assembledby State Statistical Division and SLA in anelectronic spreadsheet wherein a number ofsimple transformations and calculations wereundertaken First area and GVAP for each SLAwere converted to percentages of the respectiveState total for each year In the case of theGVAP data this conversion obviated the need toadjust for the effect of inflation The resultingannual percentage figures permit qualified year-to-year comparisons and analysis of temporaltrends for all SLAs It should be noted howeverthat the percentage conversions do not moderatethe effect of periodic changes to the ABS EVAOthreshold

5

which dropped from A$22 500 in199293 to A$5000 in 199394 The effect ofthis change would have been to marginallyexpand the reported GVAP in the second andthird years of the series

Second data for all three years including thepercentages were averaged to produce a single

set of figures with which to make a generalisedassessment of the significance of agriculturalproduction in peri-urban regions Normal prac-tice with agricultural data would be to base suchan average on at least five years of data so as todampen the effect of annual fluctuations in pro-duction However additional years of SLA-leveldata were not readily available at the time whenthe database was developed Although parts ofAustralia were drought-affected during theseyears which may have temporarily inflated thevalue of peri-urban production the three-yearaverages provide a more reliable indication oflong-run GVAP than a single year of data

One unintended advantage of this limitedselection of years was that it avoided most of thelocal government amalgamation activity thatoccurred in a number of Australian States inthe mid-1990s Accordingly only a handful ofSLAs had to be adjusted because of changesto LGA boundaries In most cases these weresimple amalgamations of whole LGAs and wereaccommodated in the database by combiningarea and GVAP data for the affected SLAs in thepre-amalgamation years

Following these basic transformations of thedata spreadsheet formulae were written to sumthe average area and GVAP figures for all peri-urban SLAs in the database Three scenarios werecalculated on the basis of different perspectiveson the peri-urban phenomenon as discussed inthe previous section These scenarios are sum-marised on a State-by-State basis in Table 1

Scenario A describes agriculture in peri-metropolitan regions using only those SLAsidentified by McKenzie (1996) in

Beyond theSuburbs

Since this leaves a residual component ofmetropolitan fringe agriculture unaccounted fora second peri-metropolitan version Scenario Bwas also calculated This uses total area and GVAPdata for the Metropolitan Statistical Division(MSD) in each State plus any SLAs identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

that lie outside the MSDScenario C describes total agricultural productionin peri-urban regions in each State on the basisof Scenario B plus all selected non-metropolitanSLAs A list of SLAs used in the differentscenario calculations is available from the author

Findings

The research method described above and sum-marised under Scenario C in Table 1 suggests thatperi-urban regions comprise a little less than 3of the total land base used for agriculture in thefive mainland States but generate almost 25

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of total GVAP Amongst the States the valuefigures are surprisingly uniform ranging fromQueenslandrsquos 221 to South Australiarsquos 258of total GVAP from peri-urban regions In con-trast there is a marked variation in the areafigures with Victoria comprising the highestproportion of Area of Agricultural Establish-ments in regions of peri-urban influence (133)and Queensland the lowest (17) This varia-tion can be attributed to factors such as

1 the size of each State relative to its popula-tion and pattern of urban and regional devel-opment and

2 the proportion of each State in agronomicallyfavourable zones

Scenarios A and B in Table 1 also show consid-erable inter-state variation in the significance ofthe peri-metropolitan regions While the Sydneyperi-metropolitan region comprises only a frac-tion of the total peri-urban area in New South

Wales (NSW) and generates about a third of itstotal peri-urban GVAP the Adelaide regioncomprises nearly all of South Australiarsquos peri-urban sector The likely reasons for this varia-tion are similar to those listed above namely

1 the pattern of urban and regional develop-ment in each State and in particular thedegree of primacy in its urban system

2 the size of the peri-metropolitan (exurban)region identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

and 3 the extent to which the peri-metropolitan

region has been already built out or is other-wise unavailable to agriculture

A closer look at the value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions

Table 1 provides a range of insights about agri-culture in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions but onestands out above all the others Putting asidequestions about the area of agriculture subject

Table 1 Average area and value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions Australia (excluding Tasmania NorthernTerritory and Australian Capital Territory) 199293ndash1994951 (Sources Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) AGSTATS (v22) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo71170 Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) IRDB96i (Integrated Regional DataBase) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo13530)

Scenario hellip A Peri-metropolitan agriculture 12

B Peri-metropolitan agriculture 23

C Total agriculture in peri-urban regions4

Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000)

NSW 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741Peri-Urban 89 472 426 426 90 537 448 625 2 932 413 1 351 697 of total 015 707 015 744 486 2240Qld 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540Peri-Urban 970 377 664 398 975 393 718 962 2 760 785 1 235 243 of total 064 1291 065 1397 171 2210SA 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913Peri-Urban 1 199 104 571 791 1 204 502 598 586 1 204 502 598 586 of total 212 2469 213 2581 213 2581Vic 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131Peri-Urban 735 050 819 817 743 184 855 047 2 005 878 1 464 887 of total 556 1534 563 1601 1334 2550WA 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006Peri-Urban 1 263 706 459 320 1 266 554 493 347 2 703 068 860 996 of total 105 1291 106 1390 220 2358TOTAL 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331Peri-Urban 4 257 710 2 941 752 4 280 169 3 114 566 11 606 646 5 511 408 of total 108 1322 109 1400 295 2477

Notes 1 Figures are based on data for Total Area of Agricultural Establishments and Total Gross Value of Agricultural Production averaged over the period 199293 to 199495

2 Calculated on the basis of all ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by McKenzie (1996)3 Calculated on the basis of the Metropolitan Statistical Division total plus any ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by

McKenzie (1996) outside the MSD4 Calculated on the basis of Scenario B plus all non-metropolitan SLAs shown on Figure 1

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to peri-urban influence in each State and therelative significance of the peri-metropolitanregions the figures on GVAP in Scenario C areremarkable They easily exceed the US experi-ence cited above although that comparisonneeds qualification They also fly in the face ofconventional wisdom about agriculture in Aus-traliarsquos peri-urban regions This is perhaps bestillustrated by the coverage of ABARErsquos FarmSurvey Report series an annual survey ofmainly broadacre industries that with only rareexceptions has ignored the lsquosmallrsquo and intensiveindustries situated close to major populationcentres The figures in Table 1 seriously chal-lenge that conventional wisdom

Of course the caveats discussed in the previ-ous section need to be reiterated here Thespatial basis of the calculations may be too gen-erous in some respects and hence exaggeratewhat is counted as being subject to peri-urbaninfluence Nevertheless there is a further bodyof evidence that offsets any spatial exaggerationin the research method and suggests the figureof 25 of GVAP may be conservative and insome cases by a wide margin

Published research by agriculture agenciesand local government in several States shows thatABS data consistently and substantially under-state value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions NSW Agriculture found that totalGVAP for the Sydney Statistical Division in199091 was A$461 million according to ABSdata but closer to A$850 million according totheir own ground-based surveys (Kennedy1993 2) Subsequent revisions of those surveyshave put the figure at A$940 million (NSWAgriculture 1995 15ndash16) and lsquoat least A$1billionrsquo (NSW Agriculture 1998 14) suggestinga discrepancy of about 100 In the HornsbyShire north of Sydney the same survey methodfound a discrepancy of almost 350 betweenABS data (A$22 million in 199091) and depart-mental figures (A$983 million in 1994) forGVAP (Hornsby Shire Council 1996 76) Thetime-lag between the 199091 ABS Census andthe NSW Agriculture ground surveys wouldexplain only a fraction of these differences

Similar discrepancies have been reported inVictoria South Australia and Western AustraliaFor example a study for the Shires of YarraRanges and Nillumbik northeast of Melbournereported a difference of more than 200between ABS data (A$195 million in 199899)and industry-derived figures (A$640 million in2000) for GVAP (Langworthy and Hacket

2000 11) This is consistent with Gardnerrsquos ear-lier observations about the roughly comparableUpper Yarra Valley and Dandenong Rangesregion in the early 1990s At that time ABS data(A$88 million) were also widely at variancewith industry-based estimates (A$275 million)(Gardner 1994 99) Both reports identify theflower nursery and wine grape industries as keyelements of the under-reporting

Other reports provide insights about particu-lar industries and sectors For example in West-ern Australia Kininmonth (2000 2) citing vanGool and Runge (1999) notes discrepanciesranging from 10 for fruit production to 50for vegetables Similarly a survey of productionon the Northern Adelaide Plains (NAP) whichincludes the Virginia horticulture district madethe following observations

ABS statistics for NAP vegetable flower andnursery industries are inaccurate Industryestimates and field surveys suggest thatactual production is 25 above ABS datafor field vegetables and 50 above ABS datafor glasshouse vegetable crops

ABS statistics indicate the flower andnursery industry on the NAP is valued atapproximately $2 m Industry data suggeststhe NAP flower industry is worth $10ndash12 mwhile the nursery industry is valued atapproximately $10 m (Primary IndustriesSouth Australia 1993 16)

These findings are even more remarkable thanthe figures in Table 1 Not only do they tend tooffset concerns about spatial exaggeration in theresearch method the scale of the discrepanciesif they are repeated elsewhere raise the possibil-ity that Australiarsquos peri-urban regions may wellproduce more than 25 of GVAP In the proc-ess these findings also beg important questionsabout the credibility of the Agricultural Censusand about its usefulness to decision-makers ingovernment and industry It needs to be said thatthese questions do not impinge on the accuracyof reporting about mainstream agriculture asexplained below there are good reasons forbelieving the accuracy of ABS data on broada-cre industries Nevertheless there are severalaspects of the Census that are especially prob-lematic for agriculture in peri-urban regions

Most of the discrepancies described abovewould be the result of simple under-countingin the Agricultural Census in other wordsinstances where the Census has failed to recordthe full extent of agricultural activity on the

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ground

6

This can take a number of forms Forexample failure to account for sequential crop-ping where two three or four crops are grownon the same land each year as is the case inHornsby (Hornsby Shire Council 1996) mayexplain some of the discrepancies in the vegeta-ble sector Alternatively the self-administerednature of the Census leaves room for some pro-ducers to go missing entirely In the mid-1990sNSW Agriculture found that while ABS statis-tics on vegetable production in the BlacktownLGA were based on census returns from 30growers their own records identified 182growers Predictably this caused a considerabledifference between the ABS figures for GVAPin Blacktown (A$1438 million) and thedepartmental estimate (A$1955 million) (DavidMason NSW Agriculture personal communica-tion 8 November 1996)

Under-counting in its various forms is notaltogether surprising in peri-urban regions Thediverse dynamic and fragmented nature of theselandscapes is a different proposition to broada-cre agriculture to which the Census is gearedThis is likely to render many primary productionactivities invisible to a remotely-administeredcensus which relies heavily on producersrsquo coop-eration and the volunteering of information Inthis context under-counting may be exacerbatedby social factors such as the high numbers ofproducers from non-English-speaking back-grounds (Primary Industries South Australia1993 NSW Agriculture 1995) It has also beenobserved that many producers in peri-urbanregions operate in the cash economy and wouldbe disinclined to participate in the Census(Frank Kelleher University of Western Sydneypersonal communication 25 July 1996)

7

Evidence such as this suggests that agricul-

ture in peri-urban regions is much more likelythan agriculture generally to be affected byunder-counting in the Census Indeed most ofthe traditional broadacre industries have central-ised marketing structures andor bulk-handlingsystems that leave little scope for the volume ofproduction and hence its value to be misrepre-sented However under-counting is not the onlyway in which value of production in peri-urbanregions may be misrepresented Houston (1998)has also noted potential problems associated with

1 the EVAO threshold the effect of which isheavily concentrated in peri-urban regions

2 the use of State average prices to calculatevalue of production which may ignore sig-

nificant regional disparities in prices receivedfor some commodities and

3 the reporting of gross values which fail toidentify important regional differences inmarketing costs such as transport

Against this background the findings summa-rised in Table 1 leave the reader to speculate onthe proportion of GVAP that is actually gener-ated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions The nec-essarily qualified finding of 25 is a remarkablefigure Even a reduction to say 20 to allowfor any spatial exaggeration in the researchmethod or the effect of drought in the surveyyears would still have important implicationsfor policy-makers However the intriguingpossibility that more than a quarter of total grossvalue of agricultural production comes fromperi-urban regions would force some changes inthe way we think about agriculture in Australiaand about how we regard peri-urban regionsIn the circumstances though it is best to leavethe evidence with all its qualifications andlimitations to speak for itself

On this point it also needs to be emphasisedthat the findings presented here are insufficientto enable any definitive conclusions about thewider significance of agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions GVAP data say little aboutthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences Neither is it possible to detectin these data the effect that various direct andindirect subsidies may have had on agriculturalproduction or on the levels of farm debt under-lying that production These are questions thatneed further investigation although they couldequally be asked about agriculture generallyand in regard to subsidies about urban fringehousing development too

Answers to such questions would require amajor economic modelling project well beyondthe scope of a modest research paper So for themoment the findings presented here need to bekept in perspective Nevertheless recent nationalanalysis of the spatial distribution of farm prof-itability measured on a profit-at-full-equity basissuggests that peri-urban regions may indeed beeconomically significant for reasons other thansimple GVAP (NLWRA 2002 Figure 116)

New perspectives on peri-urban agriculture and peri-urban regions

The findings of the previous section have someunsettling implications for the ways in which

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agriculture peri-urban agriculture and peri-urbanregions are viewed in Australia Even if it is notpossible to be precise about the extent of theseimplications there is a clear case for closerexamination Such an examination should not belimited to the obvious task of better accountingfor agriculture in peri-urban regions It alsoseems worth inquiring into how public policyand the instruments on which policy-makersrely such as the Agricultural Census mighthave contributed to this situation and how bothmight need to change This section briefly laysout some themes for future consideration

Implications for public policy

Twelve years ago the House of RepresentativesStanding Committee for Long Term Strategiessuggested that Australia is lsquolike an archipelagomdash islands of closer settlement surrounded by anocean of arid or marginalised landrsquo (AustraliaParliament 1992 5) This metaphor was intendedto emphasise the extent to which Australia is anurbanised nation but it also made an importantpoint about underlying environmental circumstances

Five years later a submission to an inquiryinto Ecologically Sustainable Land Management(ESLM) sought to convey a similar messageusing a series of maps illustrating agronomicpotential land degradation current agriculturalland use population distribution and projectedpopulation growth (Houston 1997) Viewedsynoptically these maps reinforce the archipel-ago metaphor and show how Australiarsquos room tomanoeuvre with respect to its land resources ismore constrained than first appearances mightsuggest In particular the maps show that themost favourable components of the nationrsquosnatural resource endowment and the vast bulkof its population are crowded together into sec-tions of the eastern southern and south-westerncoastal strips Variations on this theme havebeen expounded previously by Nix (1990) andCocks (1992) and acknowledged by theNational Population Council (1992)

These relatively small areas of overlappingdemands are of course largely coincident withthe peri-urban regions shown in Figure 1 wherepresumably competition for resources is great-est This puts peri-urban regions at the heartof a national tug-of-war albeit undeclared overthe allocation of key natural resources It alsostrongly implicates peri-urban agriculture whichis inextricably linked to land supply in theseregions in the unfolding pattern of developmentand resource use occurring there If we now add

to this picture the findings about GVAP set outin the previous section peri-urban regions andthe agriculture that occurs there begin to assumea previously unheralded strategic significance

There are important consequences in all ofthis for Australiarsquos future options regardingagricultural development urban and regionaldevelopment and ultimately sustainable devel-opment Because peri-urban regions will be thesite of significant population growth for theforeseeable future these competing interestsneed to be more actively and deliberately medi-ated Amongst other things successfully mediat-ing the interface between urbanisation andagriculture will become increasingly importantFailure to do so risks more of the agriculturalland-use conflict that characterised the peri-urban regions of several States during the pastdecade (Langworthy and Hacket 2000 Hendersonand Epps 2001 Henderson 2003)

However an appreciation of the significanceof peri-urban regions and peri-urban agricultureis routinely absent from public policy delibera-tions and data collection Both themes wereignored in the Ecologically Sustainable Devel-opment (ESD) and ESLM investigations of the1990s (Australia ESDSC 1992 Industry Com-mission 1999) and as described above both theABS Agricultural Census and ABARE researchprovide limited insights on the topic Morerecently the National Land and Water ResourcesAudit (NLWRA) has also been silent on peri-urban issues This was despite including mapssuch as that showing the spatial distribution ofprofit-at-full-equity which clearly implicatesperi-urban regions (NLWRA 2002)

The findings of this research suggest the needfor a more fine-grained informed and lesstaken-for-granted approach to peri-urban mat-ters in Australian public policy A full analysisof why this topic is so often submerged in policydeliberations would require more space than isavailable here but two factors stand out Thefirst is the tendency in the agricultural sectortowards aspatial rather than spatially-basedanalysis and reporting The second is the moregeneral influence of sectoralism in public policy

Most of the routine analysis and reporting ofAustralian agriculture especially as it relates tovalue of production has a strong industry orsectoral orientation with little focus on geo-graphic entities smaller than the States (see forexample NLWRA 2001 Table 81) This risksinstitutional blindness to events and circum-stances at the regional and local level such as

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those described here There is some evidenceof emerging new pseudo-spatial frames for ana-lysis such as agro-ecological regions (ABS1996) and Barrrsquos (2002) social typology of rurallandscapes However even these suffer fromaggregation or abstraction and fail to get closeto the detail of local situations To avoid institu-tional blindness spatially based analysis atsub-regional and local levels is critical

The fact that analysis and reporting so oftenignore peri-urban regions can in turn be attrib-uted to the influence of sectoralism in publicpolicy Sectoral policy networks set the contextfor how policy issues are understood and dealtwith including what gets measured (Bell1992) For major sectors that have their ownpolicy networks this poses no problems How-ever minor sectors and sub-sectors that lie at theedge of policy networks literally or figurativelywill tend to suffer a deficit of analysis and polit-ical attention Viewed this way the problem forperi-urban development issues is that they sitawkwardly between the policy networks of theurban development and agricultural sectors(Houston 1995) Policy-makers cannot changethis fact of life but they can be mindful of itsconsequences The findings of the previoussection illustrate the importance of so being

Implications for the Agricultural Census

Against this background the role of the ABSAgricultural Census appears crucial It is theonly feasible source of standardised time-seriesdata suitable for monitoring agriculture includ-ing peri-urban agriculture at a range of spatialscales As such it is central to strategic intelli-gence about agriculture and vital to informedpolicy-making for industry development andresource management However in its currentform the Census is highly problematic Besideits credibility problems in peri-urban regionsrecent changes to ABS data collection mean thatthe Census has become even less lsquofriendlyrsquo toagriculture in peri-urban regions

Since 199798 the ABS has collected agricul-tural data by way of an annual sample-basedsurvey with a full census every five yearsAlthough satisfactory for surveying agriculturein broadacre regions sampling is unsuited to thediversity and scale of agriculture in peri-urbanregions This might mean that in four years outof five data on agriculture in peri-urban regionsare even more unreliable than the informationwhich the full census ordinarily provides In factthe situation is worse The statistical limitations

of sampling mean that for four years out of fiveagricultural data are now simply not produced atthe SLA level This gives an extra layer ofmeaning to institutional blindness Not only isagriculture in peri-urban regions submerged bya preoccupation with aspatial industries andsectors it is now systematically excluded fromofficial reporting for 80 of the time

These circumstances suggest that there is aneed for serious thinking about how the ABSdeals with agriculture in peri-urban regions Fora diverse and dynamic sector that producesaround 25 of Australiarsquos GVAP the inherentproblems of the Census are bad enough How-ever limiting the insights that it can provide tofive-yearly snapshots seems completely inade-quate at a time when States are seeking to adoptan increasingly strategic approach to their foodsectors

8

It throws into question the extent towhich agricultural policy in Australia can bedescribed as well-informed

Fortunately there is also some positive newson this front There is increasing acknowledg-ment by ABS staff of the problems with dataon agriculture in peri-urban regions (MichaelVardon ABS personal communication 5 April2002) There is also the emerging possibility ofthe geocoding of ABS data (Randall and Barson2001) which raises the prospect of using aspatial frame of analysis that more closelyapproximates the true extent of peri-urban influenceBoth developments coincide with acknowledg-ment of the need for better information aboutthe small farm sector at a recent workshop forrural policy-makers (Tonts and Black 2002)and a National Audit of Peri-urban Agriculturesponsored by RIRDC

These circumstances hold some promise for acollaborative re-think about the ways and meansof collecting and presenting data on agriculturein Australiarsquos peri-urban regions This wouldbe welcome A better understanding of thisoverlooked sector is necessary for informedpublic policy-making both in the agriculturesector and in those regions that are host tosome of Australiarsquos major sustainability issues

Conclusions

This paper presents a provisional analysis of thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions Using Agricultural Censusdata and a qualified but not unreasonable spa-tial frame the analysis suggests that peri-urbanregions generate about 25 of Australiarsquos totalGVAP from less than 3 of the agricultural land

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base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

222

Geographical Research

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2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

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ustralian Geographers 2005

Figure 1 Statistical Local Areas subject to peri-urban influence Australia 1994 Refer text for explanation

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occupancy change in rural and peri-urban areasThe latter is especially relevant to any consider-ation of agriculture in peri-urban regions as thelsquoright-to-farmrsquo debate demonstrates Consequentlythere may be a number of apparently slow-growth SLAs including some of the lsquospongecitiesrsquo (Productivity Commission 1999) whichdo not appear in Figure 1 but arguably shouldIn this regard the map may understate the extentof peri-urban influence

Fourth given that it is based on decade-olddata and SLA boundaries Figure 1 may seemsomewhat out of date Population researchconducted since the 1996 census (Beer 1999Productivity Commission 1999) suggests thatsome SLAs have dropped out of the non-metropolitan growth categories and others havecome in More recent evidence on populationchange nationally also points to a significanttrend towards inner-city SLAs and a slackeningof growth rates in some peri-urban regions(ABS 2002) However mindful of the previousparagraph it is questionable whether analysis ofthe peri-urban phenomenon would be improvedby access to the very latest data on populationchange It might also be argued that a frameof reference from the most recent period ofacknowledged peri-urban expansion is moreuseful than one established now On balanceany expansion of peri-urban influence in the pastdecade is probably off-set by the recent slowingof growth pressures in those regions

These qualifications aside Figure 1 is a rea-sonable representation of the likely extent of theperi-urban phenomenon in the five mainlandStates The SLA is a standard unit of analysisfor a great deal of population research and inany case is the smallest geographic unit forwhich Agricultural Census data are available Ifit is at all possible to calculate the value of agri-cultural production in Australiarsquos peri-urbanregions it will have to be done on an SLA basisOther assumptions about the presence or other-wise of peri-urban influence are unavoidableonce the SLA is adopted as the unit of analysisSome readers might want to nominate SLAs tobe added to or removed from the map but the neteffect is unlikely to be substantial Shortcomingssuch as these are reasonable in an exploratoryundertaking of this type

Notwithstanding this conclusion any inter-pretation of peri-urban influence based solely ondemographic variables will always be less thanideal for examining agriculture in peri-urbanregions For any analysis of their agricultural

dimensions peri-urban regions are best under-stood as rural districts under the influence ofurban property markets (Nelson 1990) It is thedirect and indirect consequences for farming ofthis real estate factor which includes demandfrom the self-containment and weekend retreatsectors (Trevor Budge and Associates 1994McKenzie 1996) that differentiates peri-urbanagriculture from agriculture generally In otherwords in attempting to understand the extent ofagriculture subject to peri-urban influence it isnot sufficient simply to look at primary indica-tors such as population growth and commutingpatterns What ultimately requires mapping arethe secondary consequences of those phenom-ena namely the actual or anticipated conversionof farmland to non-farm uses and the implica-tions of this for agriculture in the meantime

In a researcherrsquos ideal world it might be pos-sible to map peri-urban agriculture on the basisof the lsquourban price shadowrsquo (Krushelnicki andBell 1989) and surveys of farmersrsquo perceivedlsquotime left for agriculturersquo (Bryant 1974) Thiswould provide a spatial frame defined in termsrelevant to agricultural investment and develop-ment However such an approach would behighly resource intensive and beyond the meansof most researchers Over the medium term asomewhat more sophisticated frame may befeasible This could perhaps be defined withreference to building approvals occupancychange and employment data for the rural bal-ance section of SLAs and possibly at the levelof the Census Collection District For the shortterm though Figure 1 or something like it isthe only practical starting point for researcherswanting to analyse agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

The value of agricultural production in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions

An early-1990s review of rural policy issues inthe United States revealed that lsquofarming in andnear 12 of the nationrsquos major metropolitan areas[comprised] only 5 per cent of Americarsquosfarmland [yet generated] 17 per cent of allagricultural salesrsquo It was also noted that lsquowhilethese areas account for only 20 per cent of thenationrsquos population they contain 40 per cent ofits [population] growthrsquo (Lapping 1994 12)

These statistics call to mind the fact that nosimilar analysis has been conducted for Austra-lian agriculture While the ABS has for manyyears collected the raw data with which toconduct such analyses the insights we have are

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limited to those found in undergraduate text-books and atlases (NATMAP 1980 Cooper1982 Scott 1987) Whatever the reasons forthis situation it will suffice here to conclude thatthere is little evidence of research that seeks toanalyse the spatial pattern of agricultural pro-duction value in Australia rather than merely todescribe it in the broadest of terms

An opportunity to shed light on this subjectarose in 1996 as part of postgraduate researchexamining the public policy treatment of peri-urban agriculture in Australia In the course ofthat work it was necessary to examine the valueof agricultural production in peri-urban regionsrelative to agriculture generally The next twoparts of this section describe how that work wasundertaken and summarise its findings The finalpart presents some contrasting perspectiveswhich raise questions about how much is reallyknown regarding agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

Research method

Using data from the ABS Agricultural Census asimple database was constructed for analysingregional variation in the area and value ofagricultural production for the five mainlandStates The database comprises total Area ofAgricultural Establishments and total GrossValue of Agricultural Production data (hereafterlsquoarearsquo and lsquoGVAPrsquo) for SLAs in each of themainland States over the three-year period 199293 to 199495 A full copy of the database isavailable from the author

Annual area and GVAP data were assembledby State Statistical Division and SLA in anelectronic spreadsheet wherein a number ofsimple transformations and calculations wereundertaken First area and GVAP for each SLAwere converted to percentages of the respectiveState total for each year In the case of theGVAP data this conversion obviated the need toadjust for the effect of inflation The resultingannual percentage figures permit qualified year-to-year comparisons and analysis of temporaltrends for all SLAs It should be noted howeverthat the percentage conversions do not moderatethe effect of periodic changes to the ABS EVAOthreshold

5

which dropped from A$22 500 in199293 to A$5000 in 199394 The effect ofthis change would have been to marginallyexpand the reported GVAP in the second andthird years of the series

Second data for all three years including thepercentages were averaged to produce a single

set of figures with which to make a generalisedassessment of the significance of agriculturalproduction in peri-urban regions Normal prac-tice with agricultural data would be to base suchan average on at least five years of data so as todampen the effect of annual fluctuations in pro-duction However additional years of SLA-leveldata were not readily available at the time whenthe database was developed Although parts ofAustralia were drought-affected during theseyears which may have temporarily inflated thevalue of peri-urban production the three-yearaverages provide a more reliable indication oflong-run GVAP than a single year of data

One unintended advantage of this limitedselection of years was that it avoided most of thelocal government amalgamation activity thatoccurred in a number of Australian States inthe mid-1990s Accordingly only a handful ofSLAs had to be adjusted because of changesto LGA boundaries In most cases these weresimple amalgamations of whole LGAs and wereaccommodated in the database by combiningarea and GVAP data for the affected SLAs in thepre-amalgamation years

Following these basic transformations of thedata spreadsheet formulae were written to sumthe average area and GVAP figures for all peri-urban SLAs in the database Three scenarios werecalculated on the basis of different perspectiveson the peri-urban phenomenon as discussed inthe previous section These scenarios are sum-marised on a State-by-State basis in Table 1

Scenario A describes agriculture in peri-metropolitan regions using only those SLAsidentified by McKenzie (1996) in

Beyond theSuburbs

Since this leaves a residual component ofmetropolitan fringe agriculture unaccounted fora second peri-metropolitan version Scenario Bwas also calculated This uses total area and GVAPdata for the Metropolitan Statistical Division(MSD) in each State plus any SLAs identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

that lie outside the MSDScenario C describes total agricultural productionin peri-urban regions in each State on the basisof Scenario B plus all selected non-metropolitanSLAs A list of SLAs used in the differentscenario calculations is available from the author

Findings

The research method described above and sum-marised under Scenario C in Table 1 suggests thatperi-urban regions comprise a little less than 3of the total land base used for agriculture in thefive mainland States but generate almost 25

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of total GVAP Amongst the States the valuefigures are surprisingly uniform ranging fromQueenslandrsquos 221 to South Australiarsquos 258of total GVAP from peri-urban regions In con-trast there is a marked variation in the areafigures with Victoria comprising the highestproportion of Area of Agricultural Establish-ments in regions of peri-urban influence (133)and Queensland the lowest (17) This varia-tion can be attributed to factors such as

1 the size of each State relative to its popula-tion and pattern of urban and regional devel-opment and

2 the proportion of each State in agronomicallyfavourable zones

Scenarios A and B in Table 1 also show consid-erable inter-state variation in the significance ofthe peri-metropolitan regions While the Sydneyperi-metropolitan region comprises only a frac-tion of the total peri-urban area in New South

Wales (NSW) and generates about a third of itstotal peri-urban GVAP the Adelaide regioncomprises nearly all of South Australiarsquos peri-urban sector The likely reasons for this varia-tion are similar to those listed above namely

1 the pattern of urban and regional develop-ment in each State and in particular thedegree of primacy in its urban system

2 the size of the peri-metropolitan (exurban)region identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

and 3 the extent to which the peri-metropolitan

region has been already built out or is other-wise unavailable to agriculture

A closer look at the value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions

Table 1 provides a range of insights about agri-culture in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions but onestands out above all the others Putting asidequestions about the area of agriculture subject

Table 1 Average area and value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions Australia (excluding Tasmania NorthernTerritory and Australian Capital Territory) 199293ndash1994951 (Sources Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) AGSTATS (v22) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo71170 Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) IRDB96i (Integrated Regional DataBase) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo13530)

Scenario hellip A Peri-metropolitan agriculture 12

B Peri-metropolitan agriculture 23

C Total agriculture in peri-urban regions4

Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000)

NSW 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741Peri-Urban 89 472 426 426 90 537 448 625 2 932 413 1 351 697 of total 015 707 015 744 486 2240Qld 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540Peri-Urban 970 377 664 398 975 393 718 962 2 760 785 1 235 243 of total 064 1291 065 1397 171 2210SA 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913Peri-Urban 1 199 104 571 791 1 204 502 598 586 1 204 502 598 586 of total 212 2469 213 2581 213 2581Vic 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131Peri-Urban 735 050 819 817 743 184 855 047 2 005 878 1 464 887 of total 556 1534 563 1601 1334 2550WA 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006Peri-Urban 1 263 706 459 320 1 266 554 493 347 2 703 068 860 996 of total 105 1291 106 1390 220 2358TOTAL 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331Peri-Urban 4 257 710 2 941 752 4 280 169 3 114 566 11 606 646 5 511 408 of total 108 1322 109 1400 295 2477

Notes 1 Figures are based on data for Total Area of Agricultural Establishments and Total Gross Value of Agricultural Production averaged over the period 199293 to 199495

2 Calculated on the basis of all ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by McKenzie (1996)3 Calculated on the basis of the Metropolitan Statistical Division total plus any ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by

McKenzie (1996) outside the MSD4 Calculated on the basis of Scenario B plus all non-metropolitan SLAs shown on Figure 1

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to peri-urban influence in each State and therelative significance of the peri-metropolitanregions the figures on GVAP in Scenario C areremarkable They easily exceed the US experi-ence cited above although that comparisonneeds qualification They also fly in the face ofconventional wisdom about agriculture in Aus-traliarsquos peri-urban regions This is perhaps bestillustrated by the coverage of ABARErsquos FarmSurvey Report series an annual survey ofmainly broadacre industries that with only rareexceptions has ignored the lsquosmallrsquo and intensiveindustries situated close to major populationcentres The figures in Table 1 seriously chal-lenge that conventional wisdom

Of course the caveats discussed in the previ-ous section need to be reiterated here Thespatial basis of the calculations may be too gen-erous in some respects and hence exaggeratewhat is counted as being subject to peri-urbaninfluence Nevertheless there is a further bodyof evidence that offsets any spatial exaggerationin the research method and suggests the figureof 25 of GVAP may be conservative and insome cases by a wide margin

Published research by agriculture agenciesand local government in several States shows thatABS data consistently and substantially under-state value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions NSW Agriculture found that totalGVAP for the Sydney Statistical Division in199091 was A$461 million according to ABSdata but closer to A$850 million according totheir own ground-based surveys (Kennedy1993 2) Subsequent revisions of those surveyshave put the figure at A$940 million (NSWAgriculture 1995 15ndash16) and lsquoat least A$1billionrsquo (NSW Agriculture 1998 14) suggestinga discrepancy of about 100 In the HornsbyShire north of Sydney the same survey methodfound a discrepancy of almost 350 betweenABS data (A$22 million in 199091) and depart-mental figures (A$983 million in 1994) forGVAP (Hornsby Shire Council 1996 76) Thetime-lag between the 199091 ABS Census andthe NSW Agriculture ground surveys wouldexplain only a fraction of these differences

Similar discrepancies have been reported inVictoria South Australia and Western AustraliaFor example a study for the Shires of YarraRanges and Nillumbik northeast of Melbournereported a difference of more than 200between ABS data (A$195 million in 199899)and industry-derived figures (A$640 million in2000) for GVAP (Langworthy and Hacket

2000 11) This is consistent with Gardnerrsquos ear-lier observations about the roughly comparableUpper Yarra Valley and Dandenong Rangesregion in the early 1990s At that time ABS data(A$88 million) were also widely at variancewith industry-based estimates (A$275 million)(Gardner 1994 99) Both reports identify theflower nursery and wine grape industries as keyelements of the under-reporting

Other reports provide insights about particu-lar industries and sectors For example in West-ern Australia Kininmonth (2000 2) citing vanGool and Runge (1999) notes discrepanciesranging from 10 for fruit production to 50for vegetables Similarly a survey of productionon the Northern Adelaide Plains (NAP) whichincludes the Virginia horticulture district madethe following observations

ABS statistics for NAP vegetable flower andnursery industries are inaccurate Industryestimates and field surveys suggest thatactual production is 25 above ABS datafor field vegetables and 50 above ABS datafor glasshouse vegetable crops

ABS statistics indicate the flower andnursery industry on the NAP is valued atapproximately $2 m Industry data suggeststhe NAP flower industry is worth $10ndash12 mwhile the nursery industry is valued atapproximately $10 m (Primary IndustriesSouth Australia 1993 16)

These findings are even more remarkable thanthe figures in Table 1 Not only do they tend tooffset concerns about spatial exaggeration in theresearch method the scale of the discrepanciesif they are repeated elsewhere raise the possibil-ity that Australiarsquos peri-urban regions may wellproduce more than 25 of GVAP In the proc-ess these findings also beg important questionsabout the credibility of the Agricultural Censusand about its usefulness to decision-makers ingovernment and industry It needs to be said thatthese questions do not impinge on the accuracyof reporting about mainstream agriculture asexplained below there are good reasons forbelieving the accuracy of ABS data on broada-cre industries Nevertheless there are severalaspects of the Census that are especially prob-lematic for agriculture in peri-urban regions

Most of the discrepancies described abovewould be the result of simple under-countingin the Agricultural Census in other wordsinstances where the Census has failed to recordthe full extent of agricultural activity on the

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ground

6

This can take a number of forms Forexample failure to account for sequential crop-ping where two three or four crops are grownon the same land each year as is the case inHornsby (Hornsby Shire Council 1996) mayexplain some of the discrepancies in the vegeta-ble sector Alternatively the self-administerednature of the Census leaves room for some pro-ducers to go missing entirely In the mid-1990sNSW Agriculture found that while ABS statis-tics on vegetable production in the BlacktownLGA were based on census returns from 30growers their own records identified 182growers Predictably this caused a considerabledifference between the ABS figures for GVAPin Blacktown (A$1438 million) and thedepartmental estimate (A$1955 million) (DavidMason NSW Agriculture personal communica-tion 8 November 1996)

Under-counting in its various forms is notaltogether surprising in peri-urban regions Thediverse dynamic and fragmented nature of theselandscapes is a different proposition to broada-cre agriculture to which the Census is gearedThis is likely to render many primary productionactivities invisible to a remotely-administeredcensus which relies heavily on producersrsquo coop-eration and the volunteering of information Inthis context under-counting may be exacerbatedby social factors such as the high numbers ofproducers from non-English-speaking back-grounds (Primary Industries South Australia1993 NSW Agriculture 1995) It has also beenobserved that many producers in peri-urbanregions operate in the cash economy and wouldbe disinclined to participate in the Census(Frank Kelleher University of Western Sydneypersonal communication 25 July 1996)

7

Evidence such as this suggests that agricul-

ture in peri-urban regions is much more likelythan agriculture generally to be affected byunder-counting in the Census Indeed most ofthe traditional broadacre industries have central-ised marketing structures andor bulk-handlingsystems that leave little scope for the volume ofproduction and hence its value to be misrepre-sented However under-counting is not the onlyway in which value of production in peri-urbanregions may be misrepresented Houston (1998)has also noted potential problems associated with

1 the EVAO threshold the effect of which isheavily concentrated in peri-urban regions

2 the use of State average prices to calculatevalue of production which may ignore sig-

nificant regional disparities in prices receivedfor some commodities and

3 the reporting of gross values which fail toidentify important regional differences inmarketing costs such as transport

Against this background the findings summa-rised in Table 1 leave the reader to speculate onthe proportion of GVAP that is actually gener-ated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions The nec-essarily qualified finding of 25 is a remarkablefigure Even a reduction to say 20 to allowfor any spatial exaggeration in the researchmethod or the effect of drought in the surveyyears would still have important implicationsfor policy-makers However the intriguingpossibility that more than a quarter of total grossvalue of agricultural production comes fromperi-urban regions would force some changes inthe way we think about agriculture in Australiaand about how we regard peri-urban regionsIn the circumstances though it is best to leavethe evidence with all its qualifications andlimitations to speak for itself

On this point it also needs to be emphasisedthat the findings presented here are insufficientto enable any definitive conclusions about thewider significance of agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions GVAP data say little aboutthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences Neither is it possible to detectin these data the effect that various direct andindirect subsidies may have had on agriculturalproduction or on the levels of farm debt under-lying that production These are questions thatneed further investigation although they couldequally be asked about agriculture generallyand in regard to subsidies about urban fringehousing development too

Answers to such questions would require amajor economic modelling project well beyondthe scope of a modest research paper So for themoment the findings presented here need to bekept in perspective Nevertheless recent nationalanalysis of the spatial distribution of farm prof-itability measured on a profit-at-full-equity basissuggests that peri-urban regions may indeed beeconomically significant for reasons other thansimple GVAP (NLWRA 2002 Figure 116)

New perspectives on peri-urban agriculture and peri-urban regions

The findings of the previous section have someunsettling implications for the ways in which

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agriculture peri-urban agriculture and peri-urbanregions are viewed in Australia Even if it is notpossible to be precise about the extent of theseimplications there is a clear case for closerexamination Such an examination should not belimited to the obvious task of better accountingfor agriculture in peri-urban regions It alsoseems worth inquiring into how public policyand the instruments on which policy-makersrely such as the Agricultural Census mighthave contributed to this situation and how bothmight need to change This section briefly laysout some themes for future consideration

Implications for public policy

Twelve years ago the House of RepresentativesStanding Committee for Long Term Strategiessuggested that Australia is lsquolike an archipelagomdash islands of closer settlement surrounded by anocean of arid or marginalised landrsquo (AustraliaParliament 1992 5) This metaphor was intendedto emphasise the extent to which Australia is anurbanised nation but it also made an importantpoint about underlying environmental circumstances

Five years later a submission to an inquiryinto Ecologically Sustainable Land Management(ESLM) sought to convey a similar messageusing a series of maps illustrating agronomicpotential land degradation current agriculturalland use population distribution and projectedpopulation growth (Houston 1997) Viewedsynoptically these maps reinforce the archipel-ago metaphor and show how Australiarsquos room tomanoeuvre with respect to its land resources ismore constrained than first appearances mightsuggest In particular the maps show that themost favourable components of the nationrsquosnatural resource endowment and the vast bulkof its population are crowded together into sec-tions of the eastern southern and south-westerncoastal strips Variations on this theme havebeen expounded previously by Nix (1990) andCocks (1992) and acknowledged by theNational Population Council (1992)

These relatively small areas of overlappingdemands are of course largely coincident withthe peri-urban regions shown in Figure 1 wherepresumably competition for resources is great-est This puts peri-urban regions at the heartof a national tug-of-war albeit undeclared overthe allocation of key natural resources It alsostrongly implicates peri-urban agriculture whichis inextricably linked to land supply in theseregions in the unfolding pattern of developmentand resource use occurring there If we now add

to this picture the findings about GVAP set outin the previous section peri-urban regions andthe agriculture that occurs there begin to assumea previously unheralded strategic significance

There are important consequences in all ofthis for Australiarsquos future options regardingagricultural development urban and regionaldevelopment and ultimately sustainable devel-opment Because peri-urban regions will be thesite of significant population growth for theforeseeable future these competing interestsneed to be more actively and deliberately medi-ated Amongst other things successfully mediat-ing the interface between urbanisation andagriculture will become increasingly importantFailure to do so risks more of the agriculturalland-use conflict that characterised the peri-urban regions of several States during the pastdecade (Langworthy and Hacket 2000 Hendersonand Epps 2001 Henderson 2003)

However an appreciation of the significanceof peri-urban regions and peri-urban agricultureis routinely absent from public policy delibera-tions and data collection Both themes wereignored in the Ecologically Sustainable Devel-opment (ESD) and ESLM investigations of the1990s (Australia ESDSC 1992 Industry Com-mission 1999) and as described above both theABS Agricultural Census and ABARE researchprovide limited insights on the topic Morerecently the National Land and Water ResourcesAudit (NLWRA) has also been silent on peri-urban issues This was despite including mapssuch as that showing the spatial distribution ofprofit-at-full-equity which clearly implicatesperi-urban regions (NLWRA 2002)

The findings of this research suggest the needfor a more fine-grained informed and lesstaken-for-granted approach to peri-urban mat-ters in Australian public policy A full analysisof why this topic is so often submerged in policydeliberations would require more space than isavailable here but two factors stand out Thefirst is the tendency in the agricultural sectortowards aspatial rather than spatially-basedanalysis and reporting The second is the moregeneral influence of sectoralism in public policy

Most of the routine analysis and reporting ofAustralian agriculture especially as it relates tovalue of production has a strong industry orsectoral orientation with little focus on geo-graphic entities smaller than the States (see forexample NLWRA 2001 Table 81) This risksinstitutional blindness to events and circum-stances at the regional and local level such as

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those described here There is some evidenceof emerging new pseudo-spatial frames for ana-lysis such as agro-ecological regions (ABS1996) and Barrrsquos (2002) social typology of rurallandscapes However even these suffer fromaggregation or abstraction and fail to get closeto the detail of local situations To avoid institu-tional blindness spatially based analysis atsub-regional and local levels is critical

The fact that analysis and reporting so oftenignore peri-urban regions can in turn be attrib-uted to the influence of sectoralism in publicpolicy Sectoral policy networks set the contextfor how policy issues are understood and dealtwith including what gets measured (Bell1992) For major sectors that have their ownpolicy networks this poses no problems How-ever minor sectors and sub-sectors that lie at theedge of policy networks literally or figurativelywill tend to suffer a deficit of analysis and polit-ical attention Viewed this way the problem forperi-urban development issues is that they sitawkwardly between the policy networks of theurban development and agricultural sectors(Houston 1995) Policy-makers cannot changethis fact of life but they can be mindful of itsconsequences The findings of the previoussection illustrate the importance of so being

Implications for the Agricultural Census

Against this background the role of the ABSAgricultural Census appears crucial It is theonly feasible source of standardised time-seriesdata suitable for monitoring agriculture includ-ing peri-urban agriculture at a range of spatialscales As such it is central to strategic intelli-gence about agriculture and vital to informedpolicy-making for industry development andresource management However in its currentform the Census is highly problematic Besideits credibility problems in peri-urban regionsrecent changes to ABS data collection mean thatthe Census has become even less lsquofriendlyrsquo toagriculture in peri-urban regions

Since 199798 the ABS has collected agricul-tural data by way of an annual sample-basedsurvey with a full census every five yearsAlthough satisfactory for surveying agriculturein broadacre regions sampling is unsuited to thediversity and scale of agriculture in peri-urbanregions This might mean that in four years outof five data on agriculture in peri-urban regionsare even more unreliable than the informationwhich the full census ordinarily provides In factthe situation is worse The statistical limitations

of sampling mean that for four years out of fiveagricultural data are now simply not produced atthe SLA level This gives an extra layer ofmeaning to institutional blindness Not only isagriculture in peri-urban regions submerged bya preoccupation with aspatial industries andsectors it is now systematically excluded fromofficial reporting for 80 of the time

These circumstances suggest that there is aneed for serious thinking about how the ABSdeals with agriculture in peri-urban regions Fora diverse and dynamic sector that producesaround 25 of Australiarsquos GVAP the inherentproblems of the Census are bad enough How-ever limiting the insights that it can provide tofive-yearly snapshots seems completely inade-quate at a time when States are seeking to adoptan increasingly strategic approach to their foodsectors

8

It throws into question the extent towhich agricultural policy in Australia can bedescribed as well-informed

Fortunately there is also some positive newson this front There is increasing acknowledg-ment by ABS staff of the problems with dataon agriculture in peri-urban regions (MichaelVardon ABS personal communication 5 April2002) There is also the emerging possibility ofthe geocoding of ABS data (Randall and Barson2001) which raises the prospect of using aspatial frame of analysis that more closelyapproximates the true extent of peri-urban influenceBoth developments coincide with acknowledg-ment of the need for better information aboutthe small farm sector at a recent workshop forrural policy-makers (Tonts and Black 2002)and a National Audit of Peri-urban Agriculturesponsored by RIRDC

These circumstances hold some promise for acollaborative re-think about the ways and meansof collecting and presenting data on agriculturein Australiarsquos peri-urban regions This wouldbe welcome A better understanding of thisoverlooked sector is necessary for informedpublic policy-making both in the agriculturesector and in those regions that are host tosome of Australiarsquos major sustainability issues

Conclusions

This paper presents a provisional analysis of thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions Using Agricultural Censusdata and a qualified but not unreasonable spa-tial frame the analysis suggests that peri-urbanregions generate about 25 of Australiarsquos totalGVAP from less than 3 of the agricultural land

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base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

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copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

214

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June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

occupancy change in rural and peri-urban areasThe latter is especially relevant to any consider-ation of agriculture in peri-urban regions as thelsquoright-to-farmrsquo debate demonstrates Consequentlythere may be a number of apparently slow-growth SLAs including some of the lsquospongecitiesrsquo (Productivity Commission 1999) whichdo not appear in Figure 1 but arguably shouldIn this regard the map may understate the extentof peri-urban influence

Fourth given that it is based on decade-olddata and SLA boundaries Figure 1 may seemsomewhat out of date Population researchconducted since the 1996 census (Beer 1999Productivity Commission 1999) suggests thatsome SLAs have dropped out of the non-metropolitan growth categories and others havecome in More recent evidence on populationchange nationally also points to a significanttrend towards inner-city SLAs and a slackeningof growth rates in some peri-urban regions(ABS 2002) However mindful of the previousparagraph it is questionable whether analysis ofthe peri-urban phenomenon would be improvedby access to the very latest data on populationchange It might also be argued that a frameof reference from the most recent period ofacknowledged peri-urban expansion is moreuseful than one established now On balanceany expansion of peri-urban influence in the pastdecade is probably off-set by the recent slowingof growth pressures in those regions

These qualifications aside Figure 1 is a rea-sonable representation of the likely extent of theperi-urban phenomenon in the five mainlandStates The SLA is a standard unit of analysisfor a great deal of population research and inany case is the smallest geographic unit forwhich Agricultural Census data are available Ifit is at all possible to calculate the value of agri-cultural production in Australiarsquos peri-urbanregions it will have to be done on an SLA basisOther assumptions about the presence or other-wise of peri-urban influence are unavoidableonce the SLA is adopted as the unit of analysisSome readers might want to nominate SLAs tobe added to or removed from the map but the neteffect is unlikely to be substantial Shortcomingssuch as these are reasonable in an exploratoryundertaking of this type

Notwithstanding this conclusion any inter-pretation of peri-urban influence based solely ondemographic variables will always be less thanideal for examining agriculture in peri-urbanregions For any analysis of their agricultural

dimensions peri-urban regions are best under-stood as rural districts under the influence ofurban property markets (Nelson 1990) It is thedirect and indirect consequences for farming ofthis real estate factor which includes demandfrom the self-containment and weekend retreatsectors (Trevor Budge and Associates 1994McKenzie 1996) that differentiates peri-urbanagriculture from agriculture generally In otherwords in attempting to understand the extent ofagriculture subject to peri-urban influence it isnot sufficient simply to look at primary indica-tors such as population growth and commutingpatterns What ultimately requires mapping arethe secondary consequences of those phenom-ena namely the actual or anticipated conversionof farmland to non-farm uses and the implica-tions of this for agriculture in the meantime

In a researcherrsquos ideal world it might be pos-sible to map peri-urban agriculture on the basisof the lsquourban price shadowrsquo (Krushelnicki andBell 1989) and surveys of farmersrsquo perceivedlsquotime left for agriculturersquo (Bryant 1974) Thiswould provide a spatial frame defined in termsrelevant to agricultural investment and develop-ment However such an approach would behighly resource intensive and beyond the meansof most researchers Over the medium term asomewhat more sophisticated frame may befeasible This could perhaps be defined withreference to building approvals occupancychange and employment data for the rural bal-ance section of SLAs and possibly at the levelof the Census Collection District For the shortterm though Figure 1 or something like it isthe only practical starting point for researcherswanting to analyse agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

The value of agricultural production in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions

An early-1990s review of rural policy issues inthe United States revealed that lsquofarming in andnear 12 of the nationrsquos major metropolitan areas[comprised] only 5 per cent of Americarsquosfarmland [yet generated] 17 per cent of allagricultural salesrsquo It was also noted that lsquowhilethese areas account for only 20 per cent of thenationrsquos population they contain 40 per cent ofits [population] growthrsquo (Lapping 1994 12)

These statistics call to mind the fact that nosimilar analysis has been conducted for Austra-lian agriculture While the ABS has for manyyears collected the raw data with which toconduct such analyses the insights we have are

P Houston

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copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

limited to those found in undergraduate text-books and atlases (NATMAP 1980 Cooper1982 Scott 1987) Whatever the reasons forthis situation it will suffice here to conclude thatthere is little evidence of research that seeks toanalyse the spatial pattern of agricultural pro-duction value in Australia rather than merely todescribe it in the broadest of terms

An opportunity to shed light on this subjectarose in 1996 as part of postgraduate researchexamining the public policy treatment of peri-urban agriculture in Australia In the course ofthat work it was necessary to examine the valueof agricultural production in peri-urban regionsrelative to agriculture generally The next twoparts of this section describe how that work wasundertaken and summarise its findings The finalpart presents some contrasting perspectiveswhich raise questions about how much is reallyknown regarding agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

Research method

Using data from the ABS Agricultural Census asimple database was constructed for analysingregional variation in the area and value ofagricultural production for the five mainlandStates The database comprises total Area ofAgricultural Establishments and total GrossValue of Agricultural Production data (hereafterlsquoarearsquo and lsquoGVAPrsquo) for SLAs in each of themainland States over the three-year period 199293 to 199495 A full copy of the database isavailable from the author

Annual area and GVAP data were assembledby State Statistical Division and SLA in anelectronic spreadsheet wherein a number ofsimple transformations and calculations wereundertaken First area and GVAP for each SLAwere converted to percentages of the respectiveState total for each year In the case of theGVAP data this conversion obviated the need toadjust for the effect of inflation The resultingannual percentage figures permit qualified year-to-year comparisons and analysis of temporaltrends for all SLAs It should be noted howeverthat the percentage conversions do not moderatethe effect of periodic changes to the ABS EVAOthreshold

5

which dropped from A$22 500 in199293 to A$5000 in 199394 The effect ofthis change would have been to marginallyexpand the reported GVAP in the second andthird years of the series

Second data for all three years including thepercentages were averaged to produce a single

set of figures with which to make a generalisedassessment of the significance of agriculturalproduction in peri-urban regions Normal prac-tice with agricultural data would be to base suchan average on at least five years of data so as todampen the effect of annual fluctuations in pro-duction However additional years of SLA-leveldata were not readily available at the time whenthe database was developed Although parts ofAustralia were drought-affected during theseyears which may have temporarily inflated thevalue of peri-urban production the three-yearaverages provide a more reliable indication oflong-run GVAP than a single year of data

One unintended advantage of this limitedselection of years was that it avoided most of thelocal government amalgamation activity thatoccurred in a number of Australian States inthe mid-1990s Accordingly only a handful ofSLAs had to be adjusted because of changesto LGA boundaries In most cases these weresimple amalgamations of whole LGAs and wereaccommodated in the database by combiningarea and GVAP data for the affected SLAs in thepre-amalgamation years

Following these basic transformations of thedata spreadsheet formulae were written to sumthe average area and GVAP figures for all peri-urban SLAs in the database Three scenarios werecalculated on the basis of different perspectiveson the peri-urban phenomenon as discussed inthe previous section These scenarios are sum-marised on a State-by-State basis in Table 1

Scenario A describes agriculture in peri-metropolitan regions using only those SLAsidentified by McKenzie (1996) in

Beyond theSuburbs

Since this leaves a residual component ofmetropolitan fringe agriculture unaccounted fora second peri-metropolitan version Scenario Bwas also calculated This uses total area and GVAPdata for the Metropolitan Statistical Division(MSD) in each State plus any SLAs identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

that lie outside the MSDScenario C describes total agricultural productionin peri-urban regions in each State on the basisof Scenario B plus all selected non-metropolitanSLAs A list of SLAs used in the differentscenario calculations is available from the author

Findings

The research method described above and sum-marised under Scenario C in Table 1 suggests thatperi-urban regions comprise a little less than 3of the total land base used for agriculture in thefive mainland States but generate almost 25

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June 2005

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43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

of total GVAP Amongst the States the valuefigures are surprisingly uniform ranging fromQueenslandrsquos 221 to South Australiarsquos 258of total GVAP from peri-urban regions In con-trast there is a marked variation in the areafigures with Victoria comprising the highestproportion of Area of Agricultural Establish-ments in regions of peri-urban influence (133)and Queensland the lowest (17) This varia-tion can be attributed to factors such as

1 the size of each State relative to its popula-tion and pattern of urban and regional devel-opment and

2 the proportion of each State in agronomicallyfavourable zones

Scenarios A and B in Table 1 also show consid-erable inter-state variation in the significance ofthe peri-metropolitan regions While the Sydneyperi-metropolitan region comprises only a frac-tion of the total peri-urban area in New South

Wales (NSW) and generates about a third of itstotal peri-urban GVAP the Adelaide regioncomprises nearly all of South Australiarsquos peri-urban sector The likely reasons for this varia-tion are similar to those listed above namely

1 the pattern of urban and regional develop-ment in each State and in particular thedegree of primacy in its urban system

2 the size of the peri-metropolitan (exurban)region identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

and 3 the extent to which the peri-metropolitan

region has been already built out or is other-wise unavailable to agriculture

A closer look at the value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions

Table 1 provides a range of insights about agri-culture in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions but onestands out above all the others Putting asidequestions about the area of agriculture subject

Table 1 Average area and value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions Australia (excluding Tasmania NorthernTerritory and Australian Capital Territory) 199293ndash1994951 (Sources Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) AGSTATS (v22) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo71170 Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) IRDB96i (Integrated Regional DataBase) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo13530)

Scenario hellip A Peri-metropolitan agriculture 12

B Peri-metropolitan agriculture 23

C Total agriculture in peri-urban regions4

Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000)

NSW 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741Peri-Urban 89 472 426 426 90 537 448 625 2 932 413 1 351 697 of total 015 707 015 744 486 2240Qld 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540Peri-Urban 970 377 664 398 975 393 718 962 2 760 785 1 235 243 of total 064 1291 065 1397 171 2210SA 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913Peri-Urban 1 199 104 571 791 1 204 502 598 586 1 204 502 598 586 of total 212 2469 213 2581 213 2581Vic 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131Peri-Urban 735 050 819 817 743 184 855 047 2 005 878 1 464 887 of total 556 1534 563 1601 1334 2550WA 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006Peri-Urban 1 263 706 459 320 1 266 554 493 347 2 703 068 860 996 of total 105 1291 106 1390 220 2358TOTAL 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331Peri-Urban 4 257 710 2 941 752 4 280 169 3 114 566 11 606 646 5 511 408 of total 108 1322 109 1400 295 2477

Notes 1 Figures are based on data for Total Area of Agricultural Establishments and Total Gross Value of Agricultural Production averaged over the period 199293 to 199495

2 Calculated on the basis of all ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by McKenzie (1996)3 Calculated on the basis of the Metropolitan Statistical Division total plus any ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by

McKenzie (1996) outside the MSD4 Calculated on the basis of Scenario B plus all non-metropolitan SLAs shown on Figure 1

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to peri-urban influence in each State and therelative significance of the peri-metropolitanregions the figures on GVAP in Scenario C areremarkable They easily exceed the US experi-ence cited above although that comparisonneeds qualification They also fly in the face ofconventional wisdom about agriculture in Aus-traliarsquos peri-urban regions This is perhaps bestillustrated by the coverage of ABARErsquos FarmSurvey Report series an annual survey ofmainly broadacre industries that with only rareexceptions has ignored the lsquosmallrsquo and intensiveindustries situated close to major populationcentres The figures in Table 1 seriously chal-lenge that conventional wisdom

Of course the caveats discussed in the previ-ous section need to be reiterated here Thespatial basis of the calculations may be too gen-erous in some respects and hence exaggeratewhat is counted as being subject to peri-urbaninfluence Nevertheless there is a further bodyof evidence that offsets any spatial exaggerationin the research method and suggests the figureof 25 of GVAP may be conservative and insome cases by a wide margin

Published research by agriculture agenciesand local government in several States shows thatABS data consistently and substantially under-state value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions NSW Agriculture found that totalGVAP for the Sydney Statistical Division in199091 was A$461 million according to ABSdata but closer to A$850 million according totheir own ground-based surveys (Kennedy1993 2) Subsequent revisions of those surveyshave put the figure at A$940 million (NSWAgriculture 1995 15ndash16) and lsquoat least A$1billionrsquo (NSW Agriculture 1998 14) suggestinga discrepancy of about 100 In the HornsbyShire north of Sydney the same survey methodfound a discrepancy of almost 350 betweenABS data (A$22 million in 199091) and depart-mental figures (A$983 million in 1994) forGVAP (Hornsby Shire Council 1996 76) Thetime-lag between the 199091 ABS Census andthe NSW Agriculture ground surveys wouldexplain only a fraction of these differences

Similar discrepancies have been reported inVictoria South Australia and Western AustraliaFor example a study for the Shires of YarraRanges and Nillumbik northeast of Melbournereported a difference of more than 200between ABS data (A$195 million in 199899)and industry-derived figures (A$640 million in2000) for GVAP (Langworthy and Hacket

2000 11) This is consistent with Gardnerrsquos ear-lier observations about the roughly comparableUpper Yarra Valley and Dandenong Rangesregion in the early 1990s At that time ABS data(A$88 million) were also widely at variancewith industry-based estimates (A$275 million)(Gardner 1994 99) Both reports identify theflower nursery and wine grape industries as keyelements of the under-reporting

Other reports provide insights about particu-lar industries and sectors For example in West-ern Australia Kininmonth (2000 2) citing vanGool and Runge (1999) notes discrepanciesranging from 10 for fruit production to 50for vegetables Similarly a survey of productionon the Northern Adelaide Plains (NAP) whichincludes the Virginia horticulture district madethe following observations

ABS statistics for NAP vegetable flower andnursery industries are inaccurate Industryestimates and field surveys suggest thatactual production is 25 above ABS datafor field vegetables and 50 above ABS datafor glasshouse vegetable crops

ABS statistics indicate the flower andnursery industry on the NAP is valued atapproximately $2 m Industry data suggeststhe NAP flower industry is worth $10ndash12 mwhile the nursery industry is valued atapproximately $10 m (Primary IndustriesSouth Australia 1993 16)

These findings are even more remarkable thanthe figures in Table 1 Not only do they tend tooffset concerns about spatial exaggeration in theresearch method the scale of the discrepanciesif they are repeated elsewhere raise the possibil-ity that Australiarsquos peri-urban regions may wellproduce more than 25 of GVAP In the proc-ess these findings also beg important questionsabout the credibility of the Agricultural Censusand about its usefulness to decision-makers ingovernment and industry It needs to be said thatthese questions do not impinge on the accuracyof reporting about mainstream agriculture asexplained below there are good reasons forbelieving the accuracy of ABS data on broada-cre industries Nevertheless there are severalaspects of the Census that are especially prob-lematic for agriculture in peri-urban regions

Most of the discrepancies described abovewould be the result of simple under-countingin the Agricultural Census in other wordsinstances where the Census has failed to recordthe full extent of agricultural activity on the

218

Geographical Research

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copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

ground

6

This can take a number of forms Forexample failure to account for sequential crop-ping where two three or four crops are grownon the same land each year as is the case inHornsby (Hornsby Shire Council 1996) mayexplain some of the discrepancies in the vegeta-ble sector Alternatively the self-administerednature of the Census leaves room for some pro-ducers to go missing entirely In the mid-1990sNSW Agriculture found that while ABS statis-tics on vegetable production in the BlacktownLGA were based on census returns from 30growers their own records identified 182growers Predictably this caused a considerabledifference between the ABS figures for GVAPin Blacktown (A$1438 million) and thedepartmental estimate (A$1955 million) (DavidMason NSW Agriculture personal communica-tion 8 November 1996)

Under-counting in its various forms is notaltogether surprising in peri-urban regions Thediverse dynamic and fragmented nature of theselandscapes is a different proposition to broada-cre agriculture to which the Census is gearedThis is likely to render many primary productionactivities invisible to a remotely-administeredcensus which relies heavily on producersrsquo coop-eration and the volunteering of information Inthis context under-counting may be exacerbatedby social factors such as the high numbers ofproducers from non-English-speaking back-grounds (Primary Industries South Australia1993 NSW Agriculture 1995) It has also beenobserved that many producers in peri-urbanregions operate in the cash economy and wouldbe disinclined to participate in the Census(Frank Kelleher University of Western Sydneypersonal communication 25 July 1996)

7

Evidence such as this suggests that agricul-

ture in peri-urban regions is much more likelythan agriculture generally to be affected byunder-counting in the Census Indeed most ofthe traditional broadacre industries have central-ised marketing structures andor bulk-handlingsystems that leave little scope for the volume ofproduction and hence its value to be misrepre-sented However under-counting is not the onlyway in which value of production in peri-urbanregions may be misrepresented Houston (1998)has also noted potential problems associated with

1 the EVAO threshold the effect of which isheavily concentrated in peri-urban regions

2 the use of State average prices to calculatevalue of production which may ignore sig-

nificant regional disparities in prices receivedfor some commodities and

3 the reporting of gross values which fail toidentify important regional differences inmarketing costs such as transport

Against this background the findings summa-rised in Table 1 leave the reader to speculate onthe proportion of GVAP that is actually gener-ated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions The nec-essarily qualified finding of 25 is a remarkablefigure Even a reduction to say 20 to allowfor any spatial exaggeration in the researchmethod or the effect of drought in the surveyyears would still have important implicationsfor policy-makers However the intriguingpossibility that more than a quarter of total grossvalue of agricultural production comes fromperi-urban regions would force some changes inthe way we think about agriculture in Australiaand about how we regard peri-urban regionsIn the circumstances though it is best to leavethe evidence with all its qualifications andlimitations to speak for itself

On this point it also needs to be emphasisedthat the findings presented here are insufficientto enable any definitive conclusions about thewider significance of agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions GVAP data say little aboutthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences Neither is it possible to detectin these data the effect that various direct andindirect subsidies may have had on agriculturalproduction or on the levels of farm debt under-lying that production These are questions thatneed further investigation although they couldequally be asked about agriculture generallyand in regard to subsidies about urban fringehousing development too

Answers to such questions would require amajor economic modelling project well beyondthe scope of a modest research paper So for themoment the findings presented here need to bekept in perspective Nevertheless recent nationalanalysis of the spatial distribution of farm prof-itability measured on a profit-at-full-equity basissuggests that peri-urban regions may indeed beeconomically significant for reasons other thansimple GVAP (NLWRA 2002 Figure 116)

New perspectives on peri-urban agriculture and peri-urban regions

The findings of the previous section have someunsettling implications for the ways in which

P Houston

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copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

agriculture peri-urban agriculture and peri-urbanregions are viewed in Australia Even if it is notpossible to be precise about the extent of theseimplications there is a clear case for closerexamination Such an examination should not belimited to the obvious task of better accountingfor agriculture in peri-urban regions It alsoseems worth inquiring into how public policyand the instruments on which policy-makersrely such as the Agricultural Census mighthave contributed to this situation and how bothmight need to change This section briefly laysout some themes for future consideration

Implications for public policy

Twelve years ago the House of RepresentativesStanding Committee for Long Term Strategiessuggested that Australia is lsquolike an archipelagomdash islands of closer settlement surrounded by anocean of arid or marginalised landrsquo (AustraliaParliament 1992 5) This metaphor was intendedto emphasise the extent to which Australia is anurbanised nation but it also made an importantpoint about underlying environmental circumstances

Five years later a submission to an inquiryinto Ecologically Sustainable Land Management(ESLM) sought to convey a similar messageusing a series of maps illustrating agronomicpotential land degradation current agriculturalland use population distribution and projectedpopulation growth (Houston 1997) Viewedsynoptically these maps reinforce the archipel-ago metaphor and show how Australiarsquos room tomanoeuvre with respect to its land resources ismore constrained than first appearances mightsuggest In particular the maps show that themost favourable components of the nationrsquosnatural resource endowment and the vast bulkof its population are crowded together into sec-tions of the eastern southern and south-westerncoastal strips Variations on this theme havebeen expounded previously by Nix (1990) andCocks (1992) and acknowledged by theNational Population Council (1992)

These relatively small areas of overlappingdemands are of course largely coincident withthe peri-urban regions shown in Figure 1 wherepresumably competition for resources is great-est This puts peri-urban regions at the heartof a national tug-of-war albeit undeclared overthe allocation of key natural resources It alsostrongly implicates peri-urban agriculture whichis inextricably linked to land supply in theseregions in the unfolding pattern of developmentand resource use occurring there If we now add

to this picture the findings about GVAP set outin the previous section peri-urban regions andthe agriculture that occurs there begin to assumea previously unheralded strategic significance

There are important consequences in all ofthis for Australiarsquos future options regardingagricultural development urban and regionaldevelopment and ultimately sustainable devel-opment Because peri-urban regions will be thesite of significant population growth for theforeseeable future these competing interestsneed to be more actively and deliberately medi-ated Amongst other things successfully mediat-ing the interface between urbanisation andagriculture will become increasingly importantFailure to do so risks more of the agriculturalland-use conflict that characterised the peri-urban regions of several States during the pastdecade (Langworthy and Hacket 2000 Hendersonand Epps 2001 Henderson 2003)

However an appreciation of the significanceof peri-urban regions and peri-urban agricultureis routinely absent from public policy delibera-tions and data collection Both themes wereignored in the Ecologically Sustainable Devel-opment (ESD) and ESLM investigations of the1990s (Australia ESDSC 1992 Industry Com-mission 1999) and as described above both theABS Agricultural Census and ABARE researchprovide limited insights on the topic Morerecently the National Land and Water ResourcesAudit (NLWRA) has also been silent on peri-urban issues This was despite including mapssuch as that showing the spatial distribution ofprofit-at-full-equity which clearly implicatesperi-urban regions (NLWRA 2002)

The findings of this research suggest the needfor a more fine-grained informed and lesstaken-for-granted approach to peri-urban mat-ters in Australian public policy A full analysisof why this topic is so often submerged in policydeliberations would require more space than isavailable here but two factors stand out Thefirst is the tendency in the agricultural sectortowards aspatial rather than spatially-basedanalysis and reporting The second is the moregeneral influence of sectoralism in public policy

Most of the routine analysis and reporting ofAustralian agriculture especially as it relates tovalue of production has a strong industry orsectoral orientation with little focus on geo-graphic entities smaller than the States (see forexample NLWRA 2001 Table 81) This risksinstitutional blindness to events and circum-stances at the regional and local level such as

220

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those described here There is some evidenceof emerging new pseudo-spatial frames for ana-lysis such as agro-ecological regions (ABS1996) and Barrrsquos (2002) social typology of rurallandscapes However even these suffer fromaggregation or abstraction and fail to get closeto the detail of local situations To avoid institu-tional blindness spatially based analysis atsub-regional and local levels is critical

The fact that analysis and reporting so oftenignore peri-urban regions can in turn be attrib-uted to the influence of sectoralism in publicpolicy Sectoral policy networks set the contextfor how policy issues are understood and dealtwith including what gets measured (Bell1992) For major sectors that have their ownpolicy networks this poses no problems How-ever minor sectors and sub-sectors that lie at theedge of policy networks literally or figurativelywill tend to suffer a deficit of analysis and polit-ical attention Viewed this way the problem forperi-urban development issues is that they sitawkwardly between the policy networks of theurban development and agricultural sectors(Houston 1995) Policy-makers cannot changethis fact of life but they can be mindful of itsconsequences The findings of the previoussection illustrate the importance of so being

Implications for the Agricultural Census

Against this background the role of the ABSAgricultural Census appears crucial It is theonly feasible source of standardised time-seriesdata suitable for monitoring agriculture includ-ing peri-urban agriculture at a range of spatialscales As such it is central to strategic intelli-gence about agriculture and vital to informedpolicy-making for industry development andresource management However in its currentform the Census is highly problematic Besideits credibility problems in peri-urban regionsrecent changes to ABS data collection mean thatthe Census has become even less lsquofriendlyrsquo toagriculture in peri-urban regions

Since 199798 the ABS has collected agricul-tural data by way of an annual sample-basedsurvey with a full census every five yearsAlthough satisfactory for surveying agriculturein broadacre regions sampling is unsuited to thediversity and scale of agriculture in peri-urbanregions This might mean that in four years outof five data on agriculture in peri-urban regionsare even more unreliable than the informationwhich the full census ordinarily provides In factthe situation is worse The statistical limitations

of sampling mean that for four years out of fiveagricultural data are now simply not produced atthe SLA level This gives an extra layer ofmeaning to institutional blindness Not only isagriculture in peri-urban regions submerged bya preoccupation with aspatial industries andsectors it is now systematically excluded fromofficial reporting for 80 of the time

These circumstances suggest that there is aneed for serious thinking about how the ABSdeals with agriculture in peri-urban regions Fora diverse and dynamic sector that producesaround 25 of Australiarsquos GVAP the inherentproblems of the Census are bad enough How-ever limiting the insights that it can provide tofive-yearly snapshots seems completely inade-quate at a time when States are seeking to adoptan increasingly strategic approach to their foodsectors

8

It throws into question the extent towhich agricultural policy in Australia can bedescribed as well-informed

Fortunately there is also some positive newson this front There is increasing acknowledg-ment by ABS staff of the problems with dataon agriculture in peri-urban regions (MichaelVardon ABS personal communication 5 April2002) There is also the emerging possibility ofthe geocoding of ABS data (Randall and Barson2001) which raises the prospect of using aspatial frame of analysis that more closelyapproximates the true extent of peri-urban influenceBoth developments coincide with acknowledg-ment of the need for better information aboutthe small farm sector at a recent workshop forrural policy-makers (Tonts and Black 2002)and a National Audit of Peri-urban Agriculturesponsored by RIRDC

These circumstances hold some promise for acollaborative re-think about the ways and meansof collecting and presenting data on agriculturein Australiarsquos peri-urban regions This wouldbe welcome A better understanding of thisoverlooked sector is necessary for informedpublic policy-making both in the agriculturesector and in those regions that are host tosome of Australiarsquos major sustainability issues

Conclusions

This paper presents a provisional analysis of thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions Using Agricultural Censusdata and a qualified but not unreasonable spa-tial frame the analysis suggests that peri-urbanregions generate about 25 of Australiarsquos totalGVAP from less than 3 of the agricultural land

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

221

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

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2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

215

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

limited to those found in undergraduate text-books and atlases (NATMAP 1980 Cooper1982 Scott 1987) Whatever the reasons forthis situation it will suffice here to conclude thatthere is little evidence of research that seeks toanalyse the spatial pattern of agricultural pro-duction value in Australia rather than merely todescribe it in the broadest of terms

An opportunity to shed light on this subjectarose in 1996 as part of postgraduate researchexamining the public policy treatment of peri-urban agriculture in Australia In the course ofthat work it was necessary to examine the valueof agricultural production in peri-urban regionsrelative to agriculture generally The next twoparts of this section describe how that work wasundertaken and summarise its findings The finalpart presents some contrasting perspectiveswhich raise questions about how much is reallyknown regarding agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions

Research method

Using data from the ABS Agricultural Census asimple database was constructed for analysingregional variation in the area and value ofagricultural production for the five mainlandStates The database comprises total Area ofAgricultural Establishments and total GrossValue of Agricultural Production data (hereafterlsquoarearsquo and lsquoGVAPrsquo) for SLAs in each of themainland States over the three-year period 199293 to 199495 A full copy of the database isavailable from the author

Annual area and GVAP data were assembledby State Statistical Division and SLA in anelectronic spreadsheet wherein a number ofsimple transformations and calculations wereundertaken First area and GVAP for each SLAwere converted to percentages of the respectiveState total for each year In the case of theGVAP data this conversion obviated the need toadjust for the effect of inflation The resultingannual percentage figures permit qualified year-to-year comparisons and analysis of temporaltrends for all SLAs It should be noted howeverthat the percentage conversions do not moderatethe effect of periodic changes to the ABS EVAOthreshold

5

which dropped from A$22 500 in199293 to A$5000 in 199394 The effect ofthis change would have been to marginallyexpand the reported GVAP in the second andthird years of the series

Second data for all three years including thepercentages were averaged to produce a single

set of figures with which to make a generalisedassessment of the significance of agriculturalproduction in peri-urban regions Normal prac-tice with agricultural data would be to base suchan average on at least five years of data so as todampen the effect of annual fluctuations in pro-duction However additional years of SLA-leveldata were not readily available at the time whenthe database was developed Although parts ofAustralia were drought-affected during theseyears which may have temporarily inflated thevalue of peri-urban production the three-yearaverages provide a more reliable indication oflong-run GVAP than a single year of data

One unintended advantage of this limitedselection of years was that it avoided most of thelocal government amalgamation activity thatoccurred in a number of Australian States inthe mid-1990s Accordingly only a handful ofSLAs had to be adjusted because of changesto LGA boundaries In most cases these weresimple amalgamations of whole LGAs and wereaccommodated in the database by combiningarea and GVAP data for the affected SLAs in thepre-amalgamation years

Following these basic transformations of thedata spreadsheet formulae were written to sumthe average area and GVAP figures for all peri-urban SLAs in the database Three scenarios werecalculated on the basis of different perspectiveson the peri-urban phenomenon as discussed inthe previous section These scenarios are sum-marised on a State-by-State basis in Table 1

Scenario A describes agriculture in peri-metropolitan regions using only those SLAsidentified by McKenzie (1996) in

Beyond theSuburbs

Since this leaves a residual component ofmetropolitan fringe agriculture unaccounted fora second peri-metropolitan version Scenario Bwas also calculated This uses total area and GVAPdata for the Metropolitan Statistical Division(MSD) in each State plus any SLAs identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

that lie outside the MSDScenario C describes total agricultural productionin peri-urban regions in each State on the basisof Scenario B plus all selected non-metropolitanSLAs A list of SLAs used in the differentscenario calculations is available from the author

Findings

The research method described above and sum-marised under Scenario C in Table 1 suggests thatperi-urban regions comprise a little less than 3of the total land base used for agriculture in thefive mainland States but generate almost 25

216

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of total GVAP Amongst the States the valuefigures are surprisingly uniform ranging fromQueenslandrsquos 221 to South Australiarsquos 258of total GVAP from peri-urban regions In con-trast there is a marked variation in the areafigures with Victoria comprising the highestproportion of Area of Agricultural Establish-ments in regions of peri-urban influence (133)and Queensland the lowest (17) This varia-tion can be attributed to factors such as

1 the size of each State relative to its popula-tion and pattern of urban and regional devel-opment and

2 the proportion of each State in agronomicallyfavourable zones

Scenarios A and B in Table 1 also show consid-erable inter-state variation in the significance ofthe peri-metropolitan regions While the Sydneyperi-metropolitan region comprises only a frac-tion of the total peri-urban area in New South

Wales (NSW) and generates about a third of itstotal peri-urban GVAP the Adelaide regioncomprises nearly all of South Australiarsquos peri-urban sector The likely reasons for this varia-tion are similar to those listed above namely

1 the pattern of urban and regional develop-ment in each State and in particular thedegree of primacy in its urban system

2 the size of the peri-metropolitan (exurban)region identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

and 3 the extent to which the peri-metropolitan

region has been already built out or is other-wise unavailable to agriculture

A closer look at the value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions

Table 1 provides a range of insights about agri-culture in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions but onestands out above all the others Putting asidequestions about the area of agriculture subject

Table 1 Average area and value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions Australia (excluding Tasmania NorthernTerritory and Australian Capital Territory) 199293ndash1994951 (Sources Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) AGSTATS (v22) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo71170 Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) IRDB96i (Integrated Regional DataBase) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo13530)

Scenario hellip A Peri-metropolitan agriculture 12

B Peri-metropolitan agriculture 23

C Total agriculture in peri-urban regions4

Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000)

NSW 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741Peri-Urban 89 472 426 426 90 537 448 625 2 932 413 1 351 697 of total 015 707 015 744 486 2240Qld 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540Peri-Urban 970 377 664 398 975 393 718 962 2 760 785 1 235 243 of total 064 1291 065 1397 171 2210SA 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913Peri-Urban 1 199 104 571 791 1 204 502 598 586 1 204 502 598 586 of total 212 2469 213 2581 213 2581Vic 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131Peri-Urban 735 050 819 817 743 184 855 047 2 005 878 1 464 887 of total 556 1534 563 1601 1334 2550WA 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006Peri-Urban 1 263 706 459 320 1 266 554 493 347 2 703 068 860 996 of total 105 1291 106 1390 220 2358TOTAL 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331Peri-Urban 4 257 710 2 941 752 4 280 169 3 114 566 11 606 646 5 511 408 of total 108 1322 109 1400 295 2477

Notes 1 Figures are based on data for Total Area of Agricultural Establishments and Total Gross Value of Agricultural Production averaged over the period 199293 to 199495

2 Calculated on the basis of all ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by McKenzie (1996)3 Calculated on the basis of the Metropolitan Statistical Division total plus any ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by

McKenzie (1996) outside the MSD4 Calculated on the basis of Scenario B plus all non-metropolitan SLAs shown on Figure 1

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to peri-urban influence in each State and therelative significance of the peri-metropolitanregions the figures on GVAP in Scenario C areremarkable They easily exceed the US experi-ence cited above although that comparisonneeds qualification They also fly in the face ofconventional wisdom about agriculture in Aus-traliarsquos peri-urban regions This is perhaps bestillustrated by the coverage of ABARErsquos FarmSurvey Report series an annual survey ofmainly broadacre industries that with only rareexceptions has ignored the lsquosmallrsquo and intensiveindustries situated close to major populationcentres The figures in Table 1 seriously chal-lenge that conventional wisdom

Of course the caveats discussed in the previ-ous section need to be reiterated here Thespatial basis of the calculations may be too gen-erous in some respects and hence exaggeratewhat is counted as being subject to peri-urbaninfluence Nevertheless there is a further bodyof evidence that offsets any spatial exaggerationin the research method and suggests the figureof 25 of GVAP may be conservative and insome cases by a wide margin

Published research by agriculture agenciesand local government in several States shows thatABS data consistently and substantially under-state value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions NSW Agriculture found that totalGVAP for the Sydney Statistical Division in199091 was A$461 million according to ABSdata but closer to A$850 million according totheir own ground-based surveys (Kennedy1993 2) Subsequent revisions of those surveyshave put the figure at A$940 million (NSWAgriculture 1995 15ndash16) and lsquoat least A$1billionrsquo (NSW Agriculture 1998 14) suggestinga discrepancy of about 100 In the HornsbyShire north of Sydney the same survey methodfound a discrepancy of almost 350 betweenABS data (A$22 million in 199091) and depart-mental figures (A$983 million in 1994) forGVAP (Hornsby Shire Council 1996 76) Thetime-lag between the 199091 ABS Census andthe NSW Agriculture ground surveys wouldexplain only a fraction of these differences

Similar discrepancies have been reported inVictoria South Australia and Western AustraliaFor example a study for the Shires of YarraRanges and Nillumbik northeast of Melbournereported a difference of more than 200between ABS data (A$195 million in 199899)and industry-derived figures (A$640 million in2000) for GVAP (Langworthy and Hacket

2000 11) This is consistent with Gardnerrsquos ear-lier observations about the roughly comparableUpper Yarra Valley and Dandenong Rangesregion in the early 1990s At that time ABS data(A$88 million) were also widely at variancewith industry-based estimates (A$275 million)(Gardner 1994 99) Both reports identify theflower nursery and wine grape industries as keyelements of the under-reporting

Other reports provide insights about particu-lar industries and sectors For example in West-ern Australia Kininmonth (2000 2) citing vanGool and Runge (1999) notes discrepanciesranging from 10 for fruit production to 50for vegetables Similarly a survey of productionon the Northern Adelaide Plains (NAP) whichincludes the Virginia horticulture district madethe following observations

ABS statistics for NAP vegetable flower andnursery industries are inaccurate Industryestimates and field surveys suggest thatactual production is 25 above ABS datafor field vegetables and 50 above ABS datafor glasshouse vegetable crops

ABS statistics indicate the flower andnursery industry on the NAP is valued atapproximately $2 m Industry data suggeststhe NAP flower industry is worth $10ndash12 mwhile the nursery industry is valued atapproximately $10 m (Primary IndustriesSouth Australia 1993 16)

These findings are even more remarkable thanthe figures in Table 1 Not only do they tend tooffset concerns about spatial exaggeration in theresearch method the scale of the discrepanciesif they are repeated elsewhere raise the possibil-ity that Australiarsquos peri-urban regions may wellproduce more than 25 of GVAP In the proc-ess these findings also beg important questionsabout the credibility of the Agricultural Censusand about its usefulness to decision-makers ingovernment and industry It needs to be said thatthese questions do not impinge on the accuracyof reporting about mainstream agriculture asexplained below there are good reasons forbelieving the accuracy of ABS data on broada-cre industries Nevertheless there are severalaspects of the Census that are especially prob-lematic for agriculture in peri-urban regions

Most of the discrepancies described abovewould be the result of simple under-countingin the Agricultural Census in other wordsinstances where the Census has failed to recordthe full extent of agricultural activity on the

218

Geographical Research

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copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

ground

6

This can take a number of forms Forexample failure to account for sequential crop-ping where two three or four crops are grownon the same land each year as is the case inHornsby (Hornsby Shire Council 1996) mayexplain some of the discrepancies in the vegeta-ble sector Alternatively the self-administerednature of the Census leaves room for some pro-ducers to go missing entirely In the mid-1990sNSW Agriculture found that while ABS statis-tics on vegetable production in the BlacktownLGA were based on census returns from 30growers their own records identified 182growers Predictably this caused a considerabledifference between the ABS figures for GVAPin Blacktown (A$1438 million) and thedepartmental estimate (A$1955 million) (DavidMason NSW Agriculture personal communica-tion 8 November 1996)

Under-counting in its various forms is notaltogether surprising in peri-urban regions Thediverse dynamic and fragmented nature of theselandscapes is a different proposition to broada-cre agriculture to which the Census is gearedThis is likely to render many primary productionactivities invisible to a remotely-administeredcensus which relies heavily on producersrsquo coop-eration and the volunteering of information Inthis context under-counting may be exacerbatedby social factors such as the high numbers ofproducers from non-English-speaking back-grounds (Primary Industries South Australia1993 NSW Agriculture 1995) It has also beenobserved that many producers in peri-urbanregions operate in the cash economy and wouldbe disinclined to participate in the Census(Frank Kelleher University of Western Sydneypersonal communication 25 July 1996)

7

Evidence such as this suggests that agricul-

ture in peri-urban regions is much more likelythan agriculture generally to be affected byunder-counting in the Census Indeed most ofthe traditional broadacre industries have central-ised marketing structures andor bulk-handlingsystems that leave little scope for the volume ofproduction and hence its value to be misrepre-sented However under-counting is not the onlyway in which value of production in peri-urbanregions may be misrepresented Houston (1998)has also noted potential problems associated with

1 the EVAO threshold the effect of which isheavily concentrated in peri-urban regions

2 the use of State average prices to calculatevalue of production which may ignore sig-

nificant regional disparities in prices receivedfor some commodities and

3 the reporting of gross values which fail toidentify important regional differences inmarketing costs such as transport

Against this background the findings summa-rised in Table 1 leave the reader to speculate onthe proportion of GVAP that is actually gener-ated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions The nec-essarily qualified finding of 25 is a remarkablefigure Even a reduction to say 20 to allowfor any spatial exaggeration in the researchmethod or the effect of drought in the surveyyears would still have important implicationsfor policy-makers However the intriguingpossibility that more than a quarter of total grossvalue of agricultural production comes fromperi-urban regions would force some changes inthe way we think about agriculture in Australiaand about how we regard peri-urban regionsIn the circumstances though it is best to leavethe evidence with all its qualifications andlimitations to speak for itself

On this point it also needs to be emphasisedthat the findings presented here are insufficientto enable any definitive conclusions about thewider significance of agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions GVAP data say little aboutthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences Neither is it possible to detectin these data the effect that various direct andindirect subsidies may have had on agriculturalproduction or on the levels of farm debt under-lying that production These are questions thatneed further investigation although they couldequally be asked about agriculture generallyand in regard to subsidies about urban fringehousing development too

Answers to such questions would require amajor economic modelling project well beyondthe scope of a modest research paper So for themoment the findings presented here need to bekept in perspective Nevertheless recent nationalanalysis of the spatial distribution of farm prof-itability measured on a profit-at-full-equity basissuggests that peri-urban regions may indeed beeconomically significant for reasons other thansimple GVAP (NLWRA 2002 Figure 116)

New perspectives on peri-urban agriculture and peri-urban regions

The findings of the previous section have someunsettling implications for the ways in which

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

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copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

agriculture peri-urban agriculture and peri-urbanregions are viewed in Australia Even if it is notpossible to be precise about the extent of theseimplications there is a clear case for closerexamination Such an examination should not belimited to the obvious task of better accountingfor agriculture in peri-urban regions It alsoseems worth inquiring into how public policyand the instruments on which policy-makersrely such as the Agricultural Census mighthave contributed to this situation and how bothmight need to change This section briefly laysout some themes for future consideration

Implications for public policy

Twelve years ago the House of RepresentativesStanding Committee for Long Term Strategiessuggested that Australia is lsquolike an archipelagomdash islands of closer settlement surrounded by anocean of arid or marginalised landrsquo (AustraliaParliament 1992 5) This metaphor was intendedto emphasise the extent to which Australia is anurbanised nation but it also made an importantpoint about underlying environmental circumstances

Five years later a submission to an inquiryinto Ecologically Sustainable Land Management(ESLM) sought to convey a similar messageusing a series of maps illustrating agronomicpotential land degradation current agriculturalland use population distribution and projectedpopulation growth (Houston 1997) Viewedsynoptically these maps reinforce the archipel-ago metaphor and show how Australiarsquos room tomanoeuvre with respect to its land resources ismore constrained than first appearances mightsuggest In particular the maps show that themost favourable components of the nationrsquosnatural resource endowment and the vast bulkof its population are crowded together into sec-tions of the eastern southern and south-westerncoastal strips Variations on this theme havebeen expounded previously by Nix (1990) andCocks (1992) and acknowledged by theNational Population Council (1992)

These relatively small areas of overlappingdemands are of course largely coincident withthe peri-urban regions shown in Figure 1 wherepresumably competition for resources is great-est This puts peri-urban regions at the heartof a national tug-of-war albeit undeclared overthe allocation of key natural resources It alsostrongly implicates peri-urban agriculture whichis inextricably linked to land supply in theseregions in the unfolding pattern of developmentand resource use occurring there If we now add

to this picture the findings about GVAP set outin the previous section peri-urban regions andthe agriculture that occurs there begin to assumea previously unheralded strategic significance

There are important consequences in all ofthis for Australiarsquos future options regardingagricultural development urban and regionaldevelopment and ultimately sustainable devel-opment Because peri-urban regions will be thesite of significant population growth for theforeseeable future these competing interestsneed to be more actively and deliberately medi-ated Amongst other things successfully mediat-ing the interface between urbanisation andagriculture will become increasingly importantFailure to do so risks more of the agriculturalland-use conflict that characterised the peri-urban regions of several States during the pastdecade (Langworthy and Hacket 2000 Hendersonand Epps 2001 Henderson 2003)

However an appreciation of the significanceof peri-urban regions and peri-urban agricultureis routinely absent from public policy delibera-tions and data collection Both themes wereignored in the Ecologically Sustainable Devel-opment (ESD) and ESLM investigations of the1990s (Australia ESDSC 1992 Industry Com-mission 1999) and as described above both theABS Agricultural Census and ABARE researchprovide limited insights on the topic Morerecently the National Land and Water ResourcesAudit (NLWRA) has also been silent on peri-urban issues This was despite including mapssuch as that showing the spatial distribution ofprofit-at-full-equity which clearly implicatesperi-urban regions (NLWRA 2002)

The findings of this research suggest the needfor a more fine-grained informed and lesstaken-for-granted approach to peri-urban mat-ters in Australian public policy A full analysisof why this topic is so often submerged in policydeliberations would require more space than isavailable here but two factors stand out Thefirst is the tendency in the agricultural sectortowards aspatial rather than spatially-basedanalysis and reporting The second is the moregeneral influence of sectoralism in public policy

Most of the routine analysis and reporting ofAustralian agriculture especially as it relates tovalue of production has a strong industry orsectoral orientation with little focus on geo-graphic entities smaller than the States (see forexample NLWRA 2001 Table 81) This risksinstitutional blindness to events and circum-stances at the regional and local level such as

220

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those described here There is some evidenceof emerging new pseudo-spatial frames for ana-lysis such as agro-ecological regions (ABS1996) and Barrrsquos (2002) social typology of rurallandscapes However even these suffer fromaggregation or abstraction and fail to get closeto the detail of local situations To avoid institu-tional blindness spatially based analysis atsub-regional and local levels is critical

The fact that analysis and reporting so oftenignore peri-urban regions can in turn be attrib-uted to the influence of sectoralism in publicpolicy Sectoral policy networks set the contextfor how policy issues are understood and dealtwith including what gets measured (Bell1992) For major sectors that have their ownpolicy networks this poses no problems How-ever minor sectors and sub-sectors that lie at theedge of policy networks literally or figurativelywill tend to suffer a deficit of analysis and polit-ical attention Viewed this way the problem forperi-urban development issues is that they sitawkwardly between the policy networks of theurban development and agricultural sectors(Houston 1995) Policy-makers cannot changethis fact of life but they can be mindful of itsconsequences The findings of the previoussection illustrate the importance of so being

Implications for the Agricultural Census

Against this background the role of the ABSAgricultural Census appears crucial It is theonly feasible source of standardised time-seriesdata suitable for monitoring agriculture includ-ing peri-urban agriculture at a range of spatialscales As such it is central to strategic intelli-gence about agriculture and vital to informedpolicy-making for industry development andresource management However in its currentform the Census is highly problematic Besideits credibility problems in peri-urban regionsrecent changes to ABS data collection mean thatthe Census has become even less lsquofriendlyrsquo toagriculture in peri-urban regions

Since 199798 the ABS has collected agricul-tural data by way of an annual sample-basedsurvey with a full census every five yearsAlthough satisfactory for surveying agriculturein broadacre regions sampling is unsuited to thediversity and scale of agriculture in peri-urbanregions This might mean that in four years outof five data on agriculture in peri-urban regionsare even more unreliable than the informationwhich the full census ordinarily provides In factthe situation is worse The statistical limitations

of sampling mean that for four years out of fiveagricultural data are now simply not produced atthe SLA level This gives an extra layer ofmeaning to institutional blindness Not only isagriculture in peri-urban regions submerged bya preoccupation with aspatial industries andsectors it is now systematically excluded fromofficial reporting for 80 of the time

These circumstances suggest that there is aneed for serious thinking about how the ABSdeals with agriculture in peri-urban regions Fora diverse and dynamic sector that producesaround 25 of Australiarsquos GVAP the inherentproblems of the Census are bad enough How-ever limiting the insights that it can provide tofive-yearly snapshots seems completely inade-quate at a time when States are seeking to adoptan increasingly strategic approach to their foodsectors

8

It throws into question the extent towhich agricultural policy in Australia can bedescribed as well-informed

Fortunately there is also some positive newson this front There is increasing acknowledg-ment by ABS staff of the problems with dataon agriculture in peri-urban regions (MichaelVardon ABS personal communication 5 April2002) There is also the emerging possibility ofthe geocoding of ABS data (Randall and Barson2001) which raises the prospect of using aspatial frame of analysis that more closelyapproximates the true extent of peri-urban influenceBoth developments coincide with acknowledg-ment of the need for better information aboutthe small farm sector at a recent workshop forrural policy-makers (Tonts and Black 2002)and a National Audit of Peri-urban Agriculturesponsored by RIRDC

These circumstances hold some promise for acollaborative re-think about the ways and meansof collecting and presenting data on agriculturein Australiarsquos peri-urban regions This wouldbe welcome A better understanding of thisoverlooked sector is necessary for informedpublic policy-making both in the agriculturesector and in those regions that are host tosome of Australiarsquos major sustainability issues

Conclusions

This paper presents a provisional analysis of thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions Using Agricultural Censusdata and a qualified but not unreasonable spa-tial frame the analysis suggests that peri-urbanregions generate about 25 of Australiarsquos totalGVAP from less than 3 of the agricultural land

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

221

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

222

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2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

216

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43(2)209ndash223

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of total GVAP Amongst the States the valuefigures are surprisingly uniform ranging fromQueenslandrsquos 221 to South Australiarsquos 258of total GVAP from peri-urban regions In con-trast there is a marked variation in the areafigures with Victoria comprising the highestproportion of Area of Agricultural Establish-ments in regions of peri-urban influence (133)and Queensland the lowest (17) This varia-tion can be attributed to factors such as

1 the size of each State relative to its popula-tion and pattern of urban and regional devel-opment and

2 the proportion of each State in agronomicallyfavourable zones

Scenarios A and B in Table 1 also show consid-erable inter-state variation in the significance ofthe peri-metropolitan regions While the Sydneyperi-metropolitan region comprises only a frac-tion of the total peri-urban area in New South

Wales (NSW) and generates about a third of itstotal peri-urban GVAP the Adelaide regioncomprises nearly all of South Australiarsquos peri-urban sector The likely reasons for this varia-tion are similar to those listed above namely

1 the pattern of urban and regional develop-ment in each State and in particular thedegree of primacy in its urban system

2 the size of the peri-metropolitan (exurban)region identified in

Beyond the Suburbs

and 3 the extent to which the peri-metropolitan

region has been already built out or is other-wise unavailable to agriculture

A closer look at the value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions

Table 1 provides a range of insights about agri-culture in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions but onestands out above all the others Putting asidequestions about the area of agriculture subject

Table 1 Average area and value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions Australia (excluding Tasmania NorthernTerritory and Australian Capital Territory) 199293ndash1994951 (Sources Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) AGSTATS (v22) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo71170 Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) IRDB96i (Integrated Regional DataBase) [CD-ROM] Canberra ABS CatNo13530)

Scenario hellip A Peri-metropolitan agriculture 12

B Peri-metropolitan agriculture 23

C Total agriculture in peri-urban regions4

Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000) Area (ha) Value ($000)

NSW 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741 60 293 384 6 040 741Peri-Urban 89 472 426 426 90 537 448 625 2 932 413 1 351 697 of total 015 707 015 744 486 2240Qld 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540 150 592 494 5 144 540Peri-Urban 970 377 664 398 975 393 718 962 2 760 785 1 235 243 of total 064 1291 065 1397 171 2210SA 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913 56 640 670 2 317 913Peri-Urban 1 199 104 571 791 1 204 502 598 586 1 204 502 598 586 of total 212 2469 213 2581 213 2581Vic 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131 12 669 270 5 297 131Peri-Urban 735 050 819 817 743 184 855 047 2 005 878 1 464 887 of total 556 1534 563 1601 1334 2550WA 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006 112 995 537 3 453 006Peri-Urban 1 263 706 459 320 1 266 554 493 347 2 703 068 860 996 of total 105 1291 106 1390 220 2358TOTAL 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331 393 191 355 22 253 331Peri-Urban 4 257 710 2 941 752 4 280 169 3 114 566 11 606 646 5 511 408 of total 108 1322 109 1400 295 2477

Notes 1 Figures are based on data for Total Area of Agricultural Establishments and Total Gross Value of Agricultural Production averaged over the period 199293 to 199495

2 Calculated on the basis of all ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by McKenzie (1996)3 Calculated on the basis of the Metropolitan Statistical Division total plus any ex-urban LGAsSLAs identified by

McKenzie (1996) outside the MSD4 Calculated on the basis of Scenario B plus all non-metropolitan SLAs shown on Figure 1

P Houston

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to peri-urban influence in each State and therelative significance of the peri-metropolitanregions the figures on GVAP in Scenario C areremarkable They easily exceed the US experi-ence cited above although that comparisonneeds qualification They also fly in the face ofconventional wisdom about agriculture in Aus-traliarsquos peri-urban regions This is perhaps bestillustrated by the coverage of ABARErsquos FarmSurvey Report series an annual survey ofmainly broadacre industries that with only rareexceptions has ignored the lsquosmallrsquo and intensiveindustries situated close to major populationcentres The figures in Table 1 seriously chal-lenge that conventional wisdom

Of course the caveats discussed in the previ-ous section need to be reiterated here Thespatial basis of the calculations may be too gen-erous in some respects and hence exaggeratewhat is counted as being subject to peri-urbaninfluence Nevertheless there is a further bodyof evidence that offsets any spatial exaggerationin the research method and suggests the figureof 25 of GVAP may be conservative and insome cases by a wide margin

Published research by agriculture agenciesand local government in several States shows thatABS data consistently and substantially under-state value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions NSW Agriculture found that totalGVAP for the Sydney Statistical Division in199091 was A$461 million according to ABSdata but closer to A$850 million according totheir own ground-based surveys (Kennedy1993 2) Subsequent revisions of those surveyshave put the figure at A$940 million (NSWAgriculture 1995 15ndash16) and lsquoat least A$1billionrsquo (NSW Agriculture 1998 14) suggestinga discrepancy of about 100 In the HornsbyShire north of Sydney the same survey methodfound a discrepancy of almost 350 betweenABS data (A$22 million in 199091) and depart-mental figures (A$983 million in 1994) forGVAP (Hornsby Shire Council 1996 76) Thetime-lag between the 199091 ABS Census andthe NSW Agriculture ground surveys wouldexplain only a fraction of these differences

Similar discrepancies have been reported inVictoria South Australia and Western AustraliaFor example a study for the Shires of YarraRanges and Nillumbik northeast of Melbournereported a difference of more than 200between ABS data (A$195 million in 199899)and industry-derived figures (A$640 million in2000) for GVAP (Langworthy and Hacket

2000 11) This is consistent with Gardnerrsquos ear-lier observations about the roughly comparableUpper Yarra Valley and Dandenong Rangesregion in the early 1990s At that time ABS data(A$88 million) were also widely at variancewith industry-based estimates (A$275 million)(Gardner 1994 99) Both reports identify theflower nursery and wine grape industries as keyelements of the under-reporting

Other reports provide insights about particu-lar industries and sectors For example in West-ern Australia Kininmonth (2000 2) citing vanGool and Runge (1999) notes discrepanciesranging from 10 for fruit production to 50for vegetables Similarly a survey of productionon the Northern Adelaide Plains (NAP) whichincludes the Virginia horticulture district madethe following observations

ABS statistics for NAP vegetable flower andnursery industries are inaccurate Industryestimates and field surveys suggest thatactual production is 25 above ABS datafor field vegetables and 50 above ABS datafor glasshouse vegetable crops

ABS statistics indicate the flower andnursery industry on the NAP is valued atapproximately $2 m Industry data suggeststhe NAP flower industry is worth $10ndash12 mwhile the nursery industry is valued atapproximately $10 m (Primary IndustriesSouth Australia 1993 16)

These findings are even more remarkable thanthe figures in Table 1 Not only do they tend tooffset concerns about spatial exaggeration in theresearch method the scale of the discrepanciesif they are repeated elsewhere raise the possibil-ity that Australiarsquos peri-urban regions may wellproduce more than 25 of GVAP In the proc-ess these findings also beg important questionsabout the credibility of the Agricultural Censusand about its usefulness to decision-makers ingovernment and industry It needs to be said thatthese questions do not impinge on the accuracyof reporting about mainstream agriculture asexplained below there are good reasons forbelieving the accuracy of ABS data on broada-cre industries Nevertheless there are severalaspects of the Census that are especially prob-lematic for agriculture in peri-urban regions

Most of the discrepancies described abovewould be the result of simple under-countingin the Agricultural Census in other wordsinstances where the Census has failed to recordthe full extent of agricultural activity on the

218

Geographical Research

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June 2005

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43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

ground

6

This can take a number of forms Forexample failure to account for sequential crop-ping where two three or four crops are grownon the same land each year as is the case inHornsby (Hornsby Shire Council 1996) mayexplain some of the discrepancies in the vegeta-ble sector Alternatively the self-administerednature of the Census leaves room for some pro-ducers to go missing entirely In the mid-1990sNSW Agriculture found that while ABS statis-tics on vegetable production in the BlacktownLGA were based on census returns from 30growers their own records identified 182growers Predictably this caused a considerabledifference between the ABS figures for GVAPin Blacktown (A$1438 million) and thedepartmental estimate (A$1955 million) (DavidMason NSW Agriculture personal communica-tion 8 November 1996)

Under-counting in its various forms is notaltogether surprising in peri-urban regions Thediverse dynamic and fragmented nature of theselandscapes is a different proposition to broada-cre agriculture to which the Census is gearedThis is likely to render many primary productionactivities invisible to a remotely-administeredcensus which relies heavily on producersrsquo coop-eration and the volunteering of information Inthis context under-counting may be exacerbatedby social factors such as the high numbers ofproducers from non-English-speaking back-grounds (Primary Industries South Australia1993 NSW Agriculture 1995) It has also beenobserved that many producers in peri-urbanregions operate in the cash economy and wouldbe disinclined to participate in the Census(Frank Kelleher University of Western Sydneypersonal communication 25 July 1996)

7

Evidence such as this suggests that agricul-

ture in peri-urban regions is much more likelythan agriculture generally to be affected byunder-counting in the Census Indeed most ofthe traditional broadacre industries have central-ised marketing structures andor bulk-handlingsystems that leave little scope for the volume ofproduction and hence its value to be misrepre-sented However under-counting is not the onlyway in which value of production in peri-urbanregions may be misrepresented Houston (1998)has also noted potential problems associated with

1 the EVAO threshold the effect of which isheavily concentrated in peri-urban regions

2 the use of State average prices to calculatevalue of production which may ignore sig-

nificant regional disparities in prices receivedfor some commodities and

3 the reporting of gross values which fail toidentify important regional differences inmarketing costs such as transport

Against this background the findings summa-rised in Table 1 leave the reader to speculate onthe proportion of GVAP that is actually gener-ated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions The nec-essarily qualified finding of 25 is a remarkablefigure Even a reduction to say 20 to allowfor any spatial exaggeration in the researchmethod or the effect of drought in the surveyyears would still have important implicationsfor policy-makers However the intriguingpossibility that more than a quarter of total grossvalue of agricultural production comes fromperi-urban regions would force some changes inthe way we think about agriculture in Australiaand about how we regard peri-urban regionsIn the circumstances though it is best to leavethe evidence with all its qualifications andlimitations to speak for itself

On this point it also needs to be emphasisedthat the findings presented here are insufficientto enable any definitive conclusions about thewider significance of agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions GVAP data say little aboutthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences Neither is it possible to detectin these data the effect that various direct andindirect subsidies may have had on agriculturalproduction or on the levels of farm debt under-lying that production These are questions thatneed further investigation although they couldequally be asked about agriculture generallyand in regard to subsidies about urban fringehousing development too

Answers to such questions would require amajor economic modelling project well beyondthe scope of a modest research paper So for themoment the findings presented here need to bekept in perspective Nevertheless recent nationalanalysis of the spatial distribution of farm prof-itability measured on a profit-at-full-equity basissuggests that peri-urban regions may indeed beeconomically significant for reasons other thansimple GVAP (NLWRA 2002 Figure 116)

New perspectives on peri-urban agriculture and peri-urban regions

The findings of the previous section have someunsettling implications for the ways in which

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

219

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

agriculture peri-urban agriculture and peri-urbanregions are viewed in Australia Even if it is notpossible to be precise about the extent of theseimplications there is a clear case for closerexamination Such an examination should not belimited to the obvious task of better accountingfor agriculture in peri-urban regions It alsoseems worth inquiring into how public policyand the instruments on which policy-makersrely such as the Agricultural Census mighthave contributed to this situation and how bothmight need to change This section briefly laysout some themes for future consideration

Implications for public policy

Twelve years ago the House of RepresentativesStanding Committee for Long Term Strategiessuggested that Australia is lsquolike an archipelagomdash islands of closer settlement surrounded by anocean of arid or marginalised landrsquo (AustraliaParliament 1992 5) This metaphor was intendedto emphasise the extent to which Australia is anurbanised nation but it also made an importantpoint about underlying environmental circumstances

Five years later a submission to an inquiryinto Ecologically Sustainable Land Management(ESLM) sought to convey a similar messageusing a series of maps illustrating agronomicpotential land degradation current agriculturalland use population distribution and projectedpopulation growth (Houston 1997) Viewedsynoptically these maps reinforce the archipel-ago metaphor and show how Australiarsquos room tomanoeuvre with respect to its land resources ismore constrained than first appearances mightsuggest In particular the maps show that themost favourable components of the nationrsquosnatural resource endowment and the vast bulkof its population are crowded together into sec-tions of the eastern southern and south-westerncoastal strips Variations on this theme havebeen expounded previously by Nix (1990) andCocks (1992) and acknowledged by theNational Population Council (1992)

These relatively small areas of overlappingdemands are of course largely coincident withthe peri-urban regions shown in Figure 1 wherepresumably competition for resources is great-est This puts peri-urban regions at the heartof a national tug-of-war albeit undeclared overthe allocation of key natural resources It alsostrongly implicates peri-urban agriculture whichis inextricably linked to land supply in theseregions in the unfolding pattern of developmentand resource use occurring there If we now add

to this picture the findings about GVAP set outin the previous section peri-urban regions andthe agriculture that occurs there begin to assumea previously unheralded strategic significance

There are important consequences in all ofthis for Australiarsquos future options regardingagricultural development urban and regionaldevelopment and ultimately sustainable devel-opment Because peri-urban regions will be thesite of significant population growth for theforeseeable future these competing interestsneed to be more actively and deliberately medi-ated Amongst other things successfully mediat-ing the interface between urbanisation andagriculture will become increasingly importantFailure to do so risks more of the agriculturalland-use conflict that characterised the peri-urban regions of several States during the pastdecade (Langworthy and Hacket 2000 Hendersonand Epps 2001 Henderson 2003)

However an appreciation of the significanceof peri-urban regions and peri-urban agricultureis routinely absent from public policy delibera-tions and data collection Both themes wereignored in the Ecologically Sustainable Devel-opment (ESD) and ESLM investigations of the1990s (Australia ESDSC 1992 Industry Com-mission 1999) and as described above both theABS Agricultural Census and ABARE researchprovide limited insights on the topic Morerecently the National Land and Water ResourcesAudit (NLWRA) has also been silent on peri-urban issues This was despite including mapssuch as that showing the spatial distribution ofprofit-at-full-equity which clearly implicatesperi-urban regions (NLWRA 2002)

The findings of this research suggest the needfor a more fine-grained informed and lesstaken-for-granted approach to peri-urban mat-ters in Australian public policy A full analysisof why this topic is so often submerged in policydeliberations would require more space than isavailable here but two factors stand out Thefirst is the tendency in the agricultural sectortowards aspatial rather than spatially-basedanalysis and reporting The second is the moregeneral influence of sectoralism in public policy

Most of the routine analysis and reporting ofAustralian agriculture especially as it relates tovalue of production has a strong industry orsectoral orientation with little focus on geo-graphic entities smaller than the States (see forexample NLWRA 2001 Table 81) This risksinstitutional blindness to events and circum-stances at the regional and local level such as

220

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

those described here There is some evidenceof emerging new pseudo-spatial frames for ana-lysis such as agro-ecological regions (ABS1996) and Barrrsquos (2002) social typology of rurallandscapes However even these suffer fromaggregation or abstraction and fail to get closeto the detail of local situations To avoid institu-tional blindness spatially based analysis atsub-regional and local levels is critical

The fact that analysis and reporting so oftenignore peri-urban regions can in turn be attrib-uted to the influence of sectoralism in publicpolicy Sectoral policy networks set the contextfor how policy issues are understood and dealtwith including what gets measured (Bell1992) For major sectors that have their ownpolicy networks this poses no problems How-ever minor sectors and sub-sectors that lie at theedge of policy networks literally or figurativelywill tend to suffer a deficit of analysis and polit-ical attention Viewed this way the problem forperi-urban development issues is that they sitawkwardly between the policy networks of theurban development and agricultural sectors(Houston 1995) Policy-makers cannot changethis fact of life but they can be mindful of itsconsequences The findings of the previoussection illustrate the importance of so being

Implications for the Agricultural Census

Against this background the role of the ABSAgricultural Census appears crucial It is theonly feasible source of standardised time-seriesdata suitable for monitoring agriculture includ-ing peri-urban agriculture at a range of spatialscales As such it is central to strategic intelli-gence about agriculture and vital to informedpolicy-making for industry development andresource management However in its currentform the Census is highly problematic Besideits credibility problems in peri-urban regionsrecent changes to ABS data collection mean thatthe Census has become even less lsquofriendlyrsquo toagriculture in peri-urban regions

Since 199798 the ABS has collected agricul-tural data by way of an annual sample-basedsurvey with a full census every five yearsAlthough satisfactory for surveying agriculturein broadacre regions sampling is unsuited to thediversity and scale of agriculture in peri-urbanregions This might mean that in four years outof five data on agriculture in peri-urban regionsare even more unreliable than the informationwhich the full census ordinarily provides In factthe situation is worse The statistical limitations

of sampling mean that for four years out of fiveagricultural data are now simply not produced atthe SLA level This gives an extra layer ofmeaning to institutional blindness Not only isagriculture in peri-urban regions submerged bya preoccupation with aspatial industries andsectors it is now systematically excluded fromofficial reporting for 80 of the time

These circumstances suggest that there is aneed for serious thinking about how the ABSdeals with agriculture in peri-urban regions Fora diverse and dynamic sector that producesaround 25 of Australiarsquos GVAP the inherentproblems of the Census are bad enough How-ever limiting the insights that it can provide tofive-yearly snapshots seems completely inade-quate at a time when States are seeking to adoptan increasingly strategic approach to their foodsectors

8

It throws into question the extent towhich agricultural policy in Australia can bedescribed as well-informed

Fortunately there is also some positive newson this front There is increasing acknowledg-ment by ABS staff of the problems with dataon agriculture in peri-urban regions (MichaelVardon ABS personal communication 5 April2002) There is also the emerging possibility ofthe geocoding of ABS data (Randall and Barson2001) which raises the prospect of using aspatial frame of analysis that more closelyapproximates the true extent of peri-urban influenceBoth developments coincide with acknowledg-ment of the need for better information aboutthe small farm sector at a recent workshop forrural policy-makers (Tonts and Black 2002)and a National Audit of Peri-urban Agriculturesponsored by RIRDC

These circumstances hold some promise for acollaborative re-think about the ways and meansof collecting and presenting data on agriculturein Australiarsquos peri-urban regions This wouldbe welcome A better understanding of thisoverlooked sector is necessary for informedpublic policy-making both in the agriculturesector and in those regions that are host tosome of Australiarsquos major sustainability issues

Conclusions

This paper presents a provisional analysis of thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions Using Agricultural Censusdata and a qualified but not unreasonable spa-tial frame the analysis suggests that peri-urbanregions generate about 25 of Australiarsquos totalGVAP from less than 3 of the agricultural land

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

221

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

222

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2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

217

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

to peri-urban influence in each State and therelative significance of the peri-metropolitanregions the figures on GVAP in Scenario C areremarkable They easily exceed the US experi-ence cited above although that comparisonneeds qualification They also fly in the face ofconventional wisdom about agriculture in Aus-traliarsquos peri-urban regions This is perhaps bestillustrated by the coverage of ABARErsquos FarmSurvey Report series an annual survey ofmainly broadacre industries that with only rareexceptions has ignored the lsquosmallrsquo and intensiveindustries situated close to major populationcentres The figures in Table 1 seriously chal-lenge that conventional wisdom

Of course the caveats discussed in the previ-ous section need to be reiterated here Thespatial basis of the calculations may be too gen-erous in some respects and hence exaggeratewhat is counted as being subject to peri-urbaninfluence Nevertheless there is a further bodyof evidence that offsets any spatial exaggerationin the research method and suggests the figureof 25 of GVAP may be conservative and insome cases by a wide margin

Published research by agriculture agenciesand local government in several States shows thatABS data consistently and substantially under-state value of agricultural production in peri-urban regions NSW Agriculture found that totalGVAP for the Sydney Statistical Division in199091 was A$461 million according to ABSdata but closer to A$850 million according totheir own ground-based surveys (Kennedy1993 2) Subsequent revisions of those surveyshave put the figure at A$940 million (NSWAgriculture 1995 15ndash16) and lsquoat least A$1billionrsquo (NSW Agriculture 1998 14) suggestinga discrepancy of about 100 In the HornsbyShire north of Sydney the same survey methodfound a discrepancy of almost 350 betweenABS data (A$22 million in 199091) and depart-mental figures (A$983 million in 1994) forGVAP (Hornsby Shire Council 1996 76) Thetime-lag between the 199091 ABS Census andthe NSW Agriculture ground surveys wouldexplain only a fraction of these differences

Similar discrepancies have been reported inVictoria South Australia and Western AustraliaFor example a study for the Shires of YarraRanges and Nillumbik northeast of Melbournereported a difference of more than 200between ABS data (A$195 million in 199899)and industry-derived figures (A$640 million in2000) for GVAP (Langworthy and Hacket

2000 11) This is consistent with Gardnerrsquos ear-lier observations about the roughly comparableUpper Yarra Valley and Dandenong Rangesregion in the early 1990s At that time ABS data(A$88 million) were also widely at variancewith industry-based estimates (A$275 million)(Gardner 1994 99) Both reports identify theflower nursery and wine grape industries as keyelements of the under-reporting

Other reports provide insights about particu-lar industries and sectors For example in West-ern Australia Kininmonth (2000 2) citing vanGool and Runge (1999) notes discrepanciesranging from 10 for fruit production to 50for vegetables Similarly a survey of productionon the Northern Adelaide Plains (NAP) whichincludes the Virginia horticulture district madethe following observations

ABS statistics for NAP vegetable flower andnursery industries are inaccurate Industryestimates and field surveys suggest thatactual production is 25 above ABS datafor field vegetables and 50 above ABS datafor glasshouse vegetable crops

ABS statistics indicate the flower andnursery industry on the NAP is valued atapproximately $2 m Industry data suggeststhe NAP flower industry is worth $10ndash12 mwhile the nursery industry is valued atapproximately $10 m (Primary IndustriesSouth Australia 1993 16)

These findings are even more remarkable thanthe figures in Table 1 Not only do they tend tooffset concerns about spatial exaggeration in theresearch method the scale of the discrepanciesif they are repeated elsewhere raise the possibil-ity that Australiarsquos peri-urban regions may wellproduce more than 25 of GVAP In the proc-ess these findings also beg important questionsabout the credibility of the Agricultural Censusand about its usefulness to decision-makers ingovernment and industry It needs to be said thatthese questions do not impinge on the accuracyof reporting about mainstream agriculture asexplained below there are good reasons forbelieving the accuracy of ABS data on broada-cre industries Nevertheless there are severalaspects of the Census that are especially prob-lematic for agriculture in peri-urban regions

Most of the discrepancies described abovewould be the result of simple under-countingin the Agricultural Census in other wordsinstances where the Census has failed to recordthe full extent of agricultural activity on the

218

Geographical Research

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June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

ground

6

This can take a number of forms Forexample failure to account for sequential crop-ping where two three or four crops are grownon the same land each year as is the case inHornsby (Hornsby Shire Council 1996) mayexplain some of the discrepancies in the vegeta-ble sector Alternatively the self-administerednature of the Census leaves room for some pro-ducers to go missing entirely In the mid-1990sNSW Agriculture found that while ABS statis-tics on vegetable production in the BlacktownLGA were based on census returns from 30growers their own records identified 182growers Predictably this caused a considerabledifference between the ABS figures for GVAPin Blacktown (A$1438 million) and thedepartmental estimate (A$1955 million) (DavidMason NSW Agriculture personal communica-tion 8 November 1996)

Under-counting in its various forms is notaltogether surprising in peri-urban regions Thediverse dynamic and fragmented nature of theselandscapes is a different proposition to broada-cre agriculture to which the Census is gearedThis is likely to render many primary productionactivities invisible to a remotely-administeredcensus which relies heavily on producersrsquo coop-eration and the volunteering of information Inthis context under-counting may be exacerbatedby social factors such as the high numbers ofproducers from non-English-speaking back-grounds (Primary Industries South Australia1993 NSW Agriculture 1995) It has also beenobserved that many producers in peri-urbanregions operate in the cash economy and wouldbe disinclined to participate in the Census(Frank Kelleher University of Western Sydneypersonal communication 25 July 1996)

7

Evidence such as this suggests that agricul-

ture in peri-urban regions is much more likelythan agriculture generally to be affected byunder-counting in the Census Indeed most ofthe traditional broadacre industries have central-ised marketing structures andor bulk-handlingsystems that leave little scope for the volume ofproduction and hence its value to be misrepre-sented However under-counting is not the onlyway in which value of production in peri-urbanregions may be misrepresented Houston (1998)has also noted potential problems associated with

1 the EVAO threshold the effect of which isheavily concentrated in peri-urban regions

2 the use of State average prices to calculatevalue of production which may ignore sig-

nificant regional disparities in prices receivedfor some commodities and

3 the reporting of gross values which fail toidentify important regional differences inmarketing costs such as transport

Against this background the findings summa-rised in Table 1 leave the reader to speculate onthe proportion of GVAP that is actually gener-ated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions The nec-essarily qualified finding of 25 is a remarkablefigure Even a reduction to say 20 to allowfor any spatial exaggeration in the researchmethod or the effect of drought in the surveyyears would still have important implicationsfor policy-makers However the intriguingpossibility that more than a quarter of total grossvalue of agricultural production comes fromperi-urban regions would force some changes inthe way we think about agriculture in Australiaand about how we regard peri-urban regionsIn the circumstances though it is best to leavethe evidence with all its qualifications andlimitations to speak for itself

On this point it also needs to be emphasisedthat the findings presented here are insufficientto enable any definitive conclusions about thewider significance of agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions GVAP data say little aboutthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences Neither is it possible to detectin these data the effect that various direct andindirect subsidies may have had on agriculturalproduction or on the levels of farm debt under-lying that production These are questions thatneed further investigation although they couldequally be asked about agriculture generallyand in regard to subsidies about urban fringehousing development too

Answers to such questions would require amajor economic modelling project well beyondthe scope of a modest research paper So for themoment the findings presented here need to bekept in perspective Nevertheless recent nationalanalysis of the spatial distribution of farm prof-itability measured on a profit-at-full-equity basissuggests that peri-urban regions may indeed beeconomically significant for reasons other thansimple GVAP (NLWRA 2002 Figure 116)

New perspectives on peri-urban agriculture and peri-urban regions

The findings of the previous section have someunsettling implications for the ways in which

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

219

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

agriculture peri-urban agriculture and peri-urbanregions are viewed in Australia Even if it is notpossible to be precise about the extent of theseimplications there is a clear case for closerexamination Such an examination should not belimited to the obvious task of better accountingfor agriculture in peri-urban regions It alsoseems worth inquiring into how public policyand the instruments on which policy-makersrely such as the Agricultural Census mighthave contributed to this situation and how bothmight need to change This section briefly laysout some themes for future consideration

Implications for public policy

Twelve years ago the House of RepresentativesStanding Committee for Long Term Strategiessuggested that Australia is lsquolike an archipelagomdash islands of closer settlement surrounded by anocean of arid or marginalised landrsquo (AustraliaParliament 1992 5) This metaphor was intendedto emphasise the extent to which Australia is anurbanised nation but it also made an importantpoint about underlying environmental circumstances

Five years later a submission to an inquiryinto Ecologically Sustainable Land Management(ESLM) sought to convey a similar messageusing a series of maps illustrating agronomicpotential land degradation current agriculturalland use population distribution and projectedpopulation growth (Houston 1997) Viewedsynoptically these maps reinforce the archipel-ago metaphor and show how Australiarsquos room tomanoeuvre with respect to its land resources ismore constrained than first appearances mightsuggest In particular the maps show that themost favourable components of the nationrsquosnatural resource endowment and the vast bulkof its population are crowded together into sec-tions of the eastern southern and south-westerncoastal strips Variations on this theme havebeen expounded previously by Nix (1990) andCocks (1992) and acknowledged by theNational Population Council (1992)

These relatively small areas of overlappingdemands are of course largely coincident withthe peri-urban regions shown in Figure 1 wherepresumably competition for resources is great-est This puts peri-urban regions at the heartof a national tug-of-war albeit undeclared overthe allocation of key natural resources It alsostrongly implicates peri-urban agriculture whichis inextricably linked to land supply in theseregions in the unfolding pattern of developmentand resource use occurring there If we now add

to this picture the findings about GVAP set outin the previous section peri-urban regions andthe agriculture that occurs there begin to assumea previously unheralded strategic significance

There are important consequences in all ofthis for Australiarsquos future options regardingagricultural development urban and regionaldevelopment and ultimately sustainable devel-opment Because peri-urban regions will be thesite of significant population growth for theforeseeable future these competing interestsneed to be more actively and deliberately medi-ated Amongst other things successfully mediat-ing the interface between urbanisation andagriculture will become increasingly importantFailure to do so risks more of the agriculturalland-use conflict that characterised the peri-urban regions of several States during the pastdecade (Langworthy and Hacket 2000 Hendersonand Epps 2001 Henderson 2003)

However an appreciation of the significanceof peri-urban regions and peri-urban agricultureis routinely absent from public policy delibera-tions and data collection Both themes wereignored in the Ecologically Sustainable Devel-opment (ESD) and ESLM investigations of the1990s (Australia ESDSC 1992 Industry Com-mission 1999) and as described above both theABS Agricultural Census and ABARE researchprovide limited insights on the topic Morerecently the National Land and Water ResourcesAudit (NLWRA) has also been silent on peri-urban issues This was despite including mapssuch as that showing the spatial distribution ofprofit-at-full-equity which clearly implicatesperi-urban regions (NLWRA 2002)

The findings of this research suggest the needfor a more fine-grained informed and lesstaken-for-granted approach to peri-urban mat-ters in Australian public policy A full analysisof why this topic is so often submerged in policydeliberations would require more space than isavailable here but two factors stand out Thefirst is the tendency in the agricultural sectortowards aspatial rather than spatially-basedanalysis and reporting The second is the moregeneral influence of sectoralism in public policy

Most of the routine analysis and reporting ofAustralian agriculture especially as it relates tovalue of production has a strong industry orsectoral orientation with little focus on geo-graphic entities smaller than the States (see forexample NLWRA 2001 Table 81) This risksinstitutional blindness to events and circum-stances at the regional and local level such as

220

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

those described here There is some evidenceof emerging new pseudo-spatial frames for ana-lysis such as agro-ecological regions (ABS1996) and Barrrsquos (2002) social typology of rurallandscapes However even these suffer fromaggregation or abstraction and fail to get closeto the detail of local situations To avoid institu-tional blindness spatially based analysis atsub-regional and local levels is critical

The fact that analysis and reporting so oftenignore peri-urban regions can in turn be attrib-uted to the influence of sectoralism in publicpolicy Sectoral policy networks set the contextfor how policy issues are understood and dealtwith including what gets measured (Bell1992) For major sectors that have their ownpolicy networks this poses no problems How-ever minor sectors and sub-sectors that lie at theedge of policy networks literally or figurativelywill tend to suffer a deficit of analysis and polit-ical attention Viewed this way the problem forperi-urban development issues is that they sitawkwardly between the policy networks of theurban development and agricultural sectors(Houston 1995) Policy-makers cannot changethis fact of life but they can be mindful of itsconsequences The findings of the previoussection illustrate the importance of so being

Implications for the Agricultural Census

Against this background the role of the ABSAgricultural Census appears crucial It is theonly feasible source of standardised time-seriesdata suitable for monitoring agriculture includ-ing peri-urban agriculture at a range of spatialscales As such it is central to strategic intelli-gence about agriculture and vital to informedpolicy-making for industry development andresource management However in its currentform the Census is highly problematic Besideits credibility problems in peri-urban regionsrecent changes to ABS data collection mean thatthe Census has become even less lsquofriendlyrsquo toagriculture in peri-urban regions

Since 199798 the ABS has collected agricul-tural data by way of an annual sample-basedsurvey with a full census every five yearsAlthough satisfactory for surveying agriculturein broadacre regions sampling is unsuited to thediversity and scale of agriculture in peri-urbanregions This might mean that in four years outof five data on agriculture in peri-urban regionsare even more unreliable than the informationwhich the full census ordinarily provides In factthe situation is worse The statistical limitations

of sampling mean that for four years out of fiveagricultural data are now simply not produced atthe SLA level This gives an extra layer ofmeaning to institutional blindness Not only isagriculture in peri-urban regions submerged bya preoccupation with aspatial industries andsectors it is now systematically excluded fromofficial reporting for 80 of the time

These circumstances suggest that there is aneed for serious thinking about how the ABSdeals with agriculture in peri-urban regions Fora diverse and dynamic sector that producesaround 25 of Australiarsquos GVAP the inherentproblems of the Census are bad enough How-ever limiting the insights that it can provide tofive-yearly snapshots seems completely inade-quate at a time when States are seeking to adoptan increasingly strategic approach to their foodsectors

8

It throws into question the extent towhich agricultural policy in Australia can bedescribed as well-informed

Fortunately there is also some positive newson this front There is increasing acknowledg-ment by ABS staff of the problems with dataon agriculture in peri-urban regions (MichaelVardon ABS personal communication 5 April2002) There is also the emerging possibility ofthe geocoding of ABS data (Randall and Barson2001) which raises the prospect of using aspatial frame of analysis that more closelyapproximates the true extent of peri-urban influenceBoth developments coincide with acknowledg-ment of the need for better information aboutthe small farm sector at a recent workshop forrural policy-makers (Tonts and Black 2002)and a National Audit of Peri-urban Agriculturesponsored by RIRDC

These circumstances hold some promise for acollaborative re-think about the ways and meansof collecting and presenting data on agriculturein Australiarsquos peri-urban regions This wouldbe welcome A better understanding of thisoverlooked sector is necessary for informedpublic policy-making both in the agriculturesector and in those regions that are host tosome of Australiarsquos major sustainability issues

Conclusions

This paper presents a provisional analysis of thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions Using Agricultural Censusdata and a qualified but not unreasonable spa-tial frame the analysis suggests that peri-urbanregions generate about 25 of Australiarsquos totalGVAP from less than 3 of the agricultural land

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

221

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

222

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

218

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

ground

6

This can take a number of forms Forexample failure to account for sequential crop-ping where two three or four crops are grownon the same land each year as is the case inHornsby (Hornsby Shire Council 1996) mayexplain some of the discrepancies in the vegeta-ble sector Alternatively the self-administerednature of the Census leaves room for some pro-ducers to go missing entirely In the mid-1990sNSW Agriculture found that while ABS statis-tics on vegetable production in the BlacktownLGA were based on census returns from 30growers their own records identified 182growers Predictably this caused a considerabledifference between the ABS figures for GVAPin Blacktown (A$1438 million) and thedepartmental estimate (A$1955 million) (DavidMason NSW Agriculture personal communica-tion 8 November 1996)

Under-counting in its various forms is notaltogether surprising in peri-urban regions Thediverse dynamic and fragmented nature of theselandscapes is a different proposition to broada-cre agriculture to which the Census is gearedThis is likely to render many primary productionactivities invisible to a remotely-administeredcensus which relies heavily on producersrsquo coop-eration and the volunteering of information Inthis context under-counting may be exacerbatedby social factors such as the high numbers ofproducers from non-English-speaking back-grounds (Primary Industries South Australia1993 NSW Agriculture 1995) It has also beenobserved that many producers in peri-urbanregions operate in the cash economy and wouldbe disinclined to participate in the Census(Frank Kelleher University of Western Sydneypersonal communication 25 July 1996)

7

Evidence such as this suggests that agricul-

ture in peri-urban regions is much more likelythan agriculture generally to be affected byunder-counting in the Census Indeed most ofthe traditional broadacre industries have central-ised marketing structures andor bulk-handlingsystems that leave little scope for the volume ofproduction and hence its value to be misrepre-sented However under-counting is not the onlyway in which value of production in peri-urbanregions may be misrepresented Houston (1998)has also noted potential problems associated with

1 the EVAO threshold the effect of which isheavily concentrated in peri-urban regions

2 the use of State average prices to calculatevalue of production which may ignore sig-

nificant regional disparities in prices receivedfor some commodities and

3 the reporting of gross values which fail toidentify important regional differences inmarketing costs such as transport

Against this background the findings summa-rised in Table 1 leave the reader to speculate onthe proportion of GVAP that is actually gener-ated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regions The nec-essarily qualified finding of 25 is a remarkablefigure Even a reduction to say 20 to allowfor any spatial exaggeration in the researchmethod or the effect of drought in the surveyyears would still have important implicationsfor policy-makers However the intriguingpossibility that more than a quarter of total grossvalue of agricultural production comes fromperi-urban regions would force some changes inthe way we think about agriculture in Australiaand about how we regard peri-urban regionsIn the circumstances though it is best to leavethe evidence with all its qualifications andlimitations to speak for itself

On this point it also needs to be emphasisedthat the findings presented here are insufficientto enable any definitive conclusions about thewider significance of agriculture in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions GVAP data say little aboutthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences Neither is it possible to detectin these data the effect that various direct andindirect subsidies may have had on agriculturalproduction or on the levels of farm debt under-lying that production These are questions thatneed further investigation although they couldequally be asked about agriculture generallyand in regard to subsidies about urban fringehousing development too

Answers to such questions would require amajor economic modelling project well beyondthe scope of a modest research paper So for themoment the findings presented here need to bekept in perspective Nevertheless recent nationalanalysis of the spatial distribution of farm prof-itability measured on a profit-at-full-equity basissuggests that peri-urban regions may indeed beeconomically significant for reasons other thansimple GVAP (NLWRA 2002 Figure 116)

New perspectives on peri-urban agriculture and peri-urban regions

The findings of the previous section have someunsettling implications for the ways in which

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

219

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

agriculture peri-urban agriculture and peri-urbanregions are viewed in Australia Even if it is notpossible to be precise about the extent of theseimplications there is a clear case for closerexamination Such an examination should not belimited to the obvious task of better accountingfor agriculture in peri-urban regions It alsoseems worth inquiring into how public policyand the instruments on which policy-makersrely such as the Agricultural Census mighthave contributed to this situation and how bothmight need to change This section briefly laysout some themes for future consideration

Implications for public policy

Twelve years ago the House of RepresentativesStanding Committee for Long Term Strategiessuggested that Australia is lsquolike an archipelagomdash islands of closer settlement surrounded by anocean of arid or marginalised landrsquo (AustraliaParliament 1992 5) This metaphor was intendedto emphasise the extent to which Australia is anurbanised nation but it also made an importantpoint about underlying environmental circumstances

Five years later a submission to an inquiryinto Ecologically Sustainable Land Management(ESLM) sought to convey a similar messageusing a series of maps illustrating agronomicpotential land degradation current agriculturalland use population distribution and projectedpopulation growth (Houston 1997) Viewedsynoptically these maps reinforce the archipel-ago metaphor and show how Australiarsquos room tomanoeuvre with respect to its land resources ismore constrained than first appearances mightsuggest In particular the maps show that themost favourable components of the nationrsquosnatural resource endowment and the vast bulkof its population are crowded together into sec-tions of the eastern southern and south-westerncoastal strips Variations on this theme havebeen expounded previously by Nix (1990) andCocks (1992) and acknowledged by theNational Population Council (1992)

These relatively small areas of overlappingdemands are of course largely coincident withthe peri-urban regions shown in Figure 1 wherepresumably competition for resources is great-est This puts peri-urban regions at the heartof a national tug-of-war albeit undeclared overthe allocation of key natural resources It alsostrongly implicates peri-urban agriculture whichis inextricably linked to land supply in theseregions in the unfolding pattern of developmentand resource use occurring there If we now add

to this picture the findings about GVAP set outin the previous section peri-urban regions andthe agriculture that occurs there begin to assumea previously unheralded strategic significance

There are important consequences in all ofthis for Australiarsquos future options regardingagricultural development urban and regionaldevelopment and ultimately sustainable devel-opment Because peri-urban regions will be thesite of significant population growth for theforeseeable future these competing interestsneed to be more actively and deliberately medi-ated Amongst other things successfully mediat-ing the interface between urbanisation andagriculture will become increasingly importantFailure to do so risks more of the agriculturalland-use conflict that characterised the peri-urban regions of several States during the pastdecade (Langworthy and Hacket 2000 Hendersonand Epps 2001 Henderson 2003)

However an appreciation of the significanceof peri-urban regions and peri-urban agricultureis routinely absent from public policy delibera-tions and data collection Both themes wereignored in the Ecologically Sustainable Devel-opment (ESD) and ESLM investigations of the1990s (Australia ESDSC 1992 Industry Com-mission 1999) and as described above both theABS Agricultural Census and ABARE researchprovide limited insights on the topic Morerecently the National Land and Water ResourcesAudit (NLWRA) has also been silent on peri-urban issues This was despite including mapssuch as that showing the spatial distribution ofprofit-at-full-equity which clearly implicatesperi-urban regions (NLWRA 2002)

The findings of this research suggest the needfor a more fine-grained informed and lesstaken-for-granted approach to peri-urban mat-ters in Australian public policy A full analysisof why this topic is so often submerged in policydeliberations would require more space than isavailable here but two factors stand out Thefirst is the tendency in the agricultural sectortowards aspatial rather than spatially-basedanalysis and reporting The second is the moregeneral influence of sectoralism in public policy

Most of the routine analysis and reporting ofAustralian agriculture especially as it relates tovalue of production has a strong industry orsectoral orientation with little focus on geo-graphic entities smaller than the States (see forexample NLWRA 2001 Table 81) This risksinstitutional blindness to events and circum-stances at the regional and local level such as

220

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

those described here There is some evidenceof emerging new pseudo-spatial frames for ana-lysis such as agro-ecological regions (ABS1996) and Barrrsquos (2002) social typology of rurallandscapes However even these suffer fromaggregation or abstraction and fail to get closeto the detail of local situations To avoid institu-tional blindness spatially based analysis atsub-regional and local levels is critical

The fact that analysis and reporting so oftenignore peri-urban regions can in turn be attrib-uted to the influence of sectoralism in publicpolicy Sectoral policy networks set the contextfor how policy issues are understood and dealtwith including what gets measured (Bell1992) For major sectors that have their ownpolicy networks this poses no problems How-ever minor sectors and sub-sectors that lie at theedge of policy networks literally or figurativelywill tend to suffer a deficit of analysis and polit-ical attention Viewed this way the problem forperi-urban development issues is that they sitawkwardly between the policy networks of theurban development and agricultural sectors(Houston 1995) Policy-makers cannot changethis fact of life but they can be mindful of itsconsequences The findings of the previoussection illustrate the importance of so being

Implications for the Agricultural Census

Against this background the role of the ABSAgricultural Census appears crucial It is theonly feasible source of standardised time-seriesdata suitable for monitoring agriculture includ-ing peri-urban agriculture at a range of spatialscales As such it is central to strategic intelli-gence about agriculture and vital to informedpolicy-making for industry development andresource management However in its currentform the Census is highly problematic Besideits credibility problems in peri-urban regionsrecent changes to ABS data collection mean thatthe Census has become even less lsquofriendlyrsquo toagriculture in peri-urban regions

Since 199798 the ABS has collected agricul-tural data by way of an annual sample-basedsurvey with a full census every five yearsAlthough satisfactory for surveying agriculturein broadacre regions sampling is unsuited to thediversity and scale of agriculture in peri-urbanregions This might mean that in four years outof five data on agriculture in peri-urban regionsare even more unreliable than the informationwhich the full census ordinarily provides In factthe situation is worse The statistical limitations

of sampling mean that for four years out of fiveagricultural data are now simply not produced atthe SLA level This gives an extra layer ofmeaning to institutional blindness Not only isagriculture in peri-urban regions submerged bya preoccupation with aspatial industries andsectors it is now systematically excluded fromofficial reporting for 80 of the time

These circumstances suggest that there is aneed for serious thinking about how the ABSdeals with agriculture in peri-urban regions Fora diverse and dynamic sector that producesaround 25 of Australiarsquos GVAP the inherentproblems of the Census are bad enough How-ever limiting the insights that it can provide tofive-yearly snapshots seems completely inade-quate at a time when States are seeking to adoptan increasingly strategic approach to their foodsectors

8

It throws into question the extent towhich agricultural policy in Australia can bedescribed as well-informed

Fortunately there is also some positive newson this front There is increasing acknowledg-ment by ABS staff of the problems with dataon agriculture in peri-urban regions (MichaelVardon ABS personal communication 5 April2002) There is also the emerging possibility ofthe geocoding of ABS data (Randall and Barson2001) which raises the prospect of using aspatial frame of analysis that more closelyapproximates the true extent of peri-urban influenceBoth developments coincide with acknowledg-ment of the need for better information aboutthe small farm sector at a recent workshop forrural policy-makers (Tonts and Black 2002)and a National Audit of Peri-urban Agriculturesponsored by RIRDC

These circumstances hold some promise for acollaborative re-think about the ways and meansof collecting and presenting data on agriculturein Australiarsquos peri-urban regions This wouldbe welcome A better understanding of thisoverlooked sector is necessary for informedpublic policy-making both in the agriculturesector and in those regions that are host tosome of Australiarsquos major sustainability issues

Conclusions

This paper presents a provisional analysis of thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions Using Agricultural Censusdata and a qualified but not unreasonable spa-tial frame the analysis suggests that peri-urbanregions generate about 25 of Australiarsquos totalGVAP from less than 3 of the agricultural land

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

221

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

222

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

219

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

agriculture peri-urban agriculture and peri-urbanregions are viewed in Australia Even if it is notpossible to be precise about the extent of theseimplications there is a clear case for closerexamination Such an examination should not belimited to the obvious task of better accountingfor agriculture in peri-urban regions It alsoseems worth inquiring into how public policyand the instruments on which policy-makersrely such as the Agricultural Census mighthave contributed to this situation and how bothmight need to change This section briefly laysout some themes for future consideration

Implications for public policy

Twelve years ago the House of RepresentativesStanding Committee for Long Term Strategiessuggested that Australia is lsquolike an archipelagomdash islands of closer settlement surrounded by anocean of arid or marginalised landrsquo (AustraliaParliament 1992 5) This metaphor was intendedto emphasise the extent to which Australia is anurbanised nation but it also made an importantpoint about underlying environmental circumstances

Five years later a submission to an inquiryinto Ecologically Sustainable Land Management(ESLM) sought to convey a similar messageusing a series of maps illustrating agronomicpotential land degradation current agriculturalland use population distribution and projectedpopulation growth (Houston 1997) Viewedsynoptically these maps reinforce the archipel-ago metaphor and show how Australiarsquos room tomanoeuvre with respect to its land resources ismore constrained than first appearances mightsuggest In particular the maps show that themost favourable components of the nationrsquosnatural resource endowment and the vast bulkof its population are crowded together into sec-tions of the eastern southern and south-westerncoastal strips Variations on this theme havebeen expounded previously by Nix (1990) andCocks (1992) and acknowledged by theNational Population Council (1992)

These relatively small areas of overlappingdemands are of course largely coincident withthe peri-urban regions shown in Figure 1 wherepresumably competition for resources is great-est This puts peri-urban regions at the heartof a national tug-of-war albeit undeclared overthe allocation of key natural resources It alsostrongly implicates peri-urban agriculture whichis inextricably linked to land supply in theseregions in the unfolding pattern of developmentand resource use occurring there If we now add

to this picture the findings about GVAP set outin the previous section peri-urban regions andthe agriculture that occurs there begin to assumea previously unheralded strategic significance

There are important consequences in all ofthis for Australiarsquos future options regardingagricultural development urban and regionaldevelopment and ultimately sustainable devel-opment Because peri-urban regions will be thesite of significant population growth for theforeseeable future these competing interestsneed to be more actively and deliberately medi-ated Amongst other things successfully mediat-ing the interface between urbanisation andagriculture will become increasingly importantFailure to do so risks more of the agriculturalland-use conflict that characterised the peri-urban regions of several States during the pastdecade (Langworthy and Hacket 2000 Hendersonand Epps 2001 Henderson 2003)

However an appreciation of the significanceof peri-urban regions and peri-urban agricultureis routinely absent from public policy delibera-tions and data collection Both themes wereignored in the Ecologically Sustainable Devel-opment (ESD) and ESLM investigations of the1990s (Australia ESDSC 1992 Industry Com-mission 1999) and as described above both theABS Agricultural Census and ABARE researchprovide limited insights on the topic Morerecently the National Land and Water ResourcesAudit (NLWRA) has also been silent on peri-urban issues This was despite including mapssuch as that showing the spatial distribution ofprofit-at-full-equity which clearly implicatesperi-urban regions (NLWRA 2002)

The findings of this research suggest the needfor a more fine-grained informed and lesstaken-for-granted approach to peri-urban mat-ters in Australian public policy A full analysisof why this topic is so often submerged in policydeliberations would require more space than isavailable here but two factors stand out Thefirst is the tendency in the agricultural sectortowards aspatial rather than spatially-basedanalysis and reporting The second is the moregeneral influence of sectoralism in public policy

Most of the routine analysis and reporting ofAustralian agriculture especially as it relates tovalue of production has a strong industry orsectoral orientation with little focus on geo-graphic entities smaller than the States (see forexample NLWRA 2001 Table 81) This risksinstitutional blindness to events and circum-stances at the regional and local level such as

220

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

those described here There is some evidenceof emerging new pseudo-spatial frames for ana-lysis such as agro-ecological regions (ABS1996) and Barrrsquos (2002) social typology of rurallandscapes However even these suffer fromaggregation or abstraction and fail to get closeto the detail of local situations To avoid institu-tional blindness spatially based analysis atsub-regional and local levels is critical

The fact that analysis and reporting so oftenignore peri-urban regions can in turn be attrib-uted to the influence of sectoralism in publicpolicy Sectoral policy networks set the contextfor how policy issues are understood and dealtwith including what gets measured (Bell1992) For major sectors that have their ownpolicy networks this poses no problems How-ever minor sectors and sub-sectors that lie at theedge of policy networks literally or figurativelywill tend to suffer a deficit of analysis and polit-ical attention Viewed this way the problem forperi-urban development issues is that they sitawkwardly between the policy networks of theurban development and agricultural sectors(Houston 1995) Policy-makers cannot changethis fact of life but they can be mindful of itsconsequences The findings of the previoussection illustrate the importance of so being

Implications for the Agricultural Census

Against this background the role of the ABSAgricultural Census appears crucial It is theonly feasible source of standardised time-seriesdata suitable for monitoring agriculture includ-ing peri-urban agriculture at a range of spatialscales As such it is central to strategic intelli-gence about agriculture and vital to informedpolicy-making for industry development andresource management However in its currentform the Census is highly problematic Besideits credibility problems in peri-urban regionsrecent changes to ABS data collection mean thatthe Census has become even less lsquofriendlyrsquo toagriculture in peri-urban regions

Since 199798 the ABS has collected agricul-tural data by way of an annual sample-basedsurvey with a full census every five yearsAlthough satisfactory for surveying agriculturein broadacre regions sampling is unsuited to thediversity and scale of agriculture in peri-urbanregions This might mean that in four years outof five data on agriculture in peri-urban regionsare even more unreliable than the informationwhich the full census ordinarily provides In factthe situation is worse The statistical limitations

of sampling mean that for four years out of fiveagricultural data are now simply not produced atthe SLA level This gives an extra layer ofmeaning to institutional blindness Not only isagriculture in peri-urban regions submerged bya preoccupation with aspatial industries andsectors it is now systematically excluded fromofficial reporting for 80 of the time

These circumstances suggest that there is aneed for serious thinking about how the ABSdeals with agriculture in peri-urban regions Fora diverse and dynamic sector that producesaround 25 of Australiarsquos GVAP the inherentproblems of the Census are bad enough How-ever limiting the insights that it can provide tofive-yearly snapshots seems completely inade-quate at a time when States are seeking to adoptan increasingly strategic approach to their foodsectors

8

It throws into question the extent towhich agricultural policy in Australia can bedescribed as well-informed

Fortunately there is also some positive newson this front There is increasing acknowledg-ment by ABS staff of the problems with dataon agriculture in peri-urban regions (MichaelVardon ABS personal communication 5 April2002) There is also the emerging possibility ofthe geocoding of ABS data (Randall and Barson2001) which raises the prospect of using aspatial frame of analysis that more closelyapproximates the true extent of peri-urban influenceBoth developments coincide with acknowledg-ment of the need for better information aboutthe small farm sector at a recent workshop forrural policy-makers (Tonts and Black 2002)and a National Audit of Peri-urban Agriculturesponsored by RIRDC

These circumstances hold some promise for acollaborative re-think about the ways and meansof collecting and presenting data on agriculturein Australiarsquos peri-urban regions This wouldbe welcome A better understanding of thisoverlooked sector is necessary for informedpublic policy-making both in the agriculturesector and in those regions that are host tosome of Australiarsquos major sustainability issues

Conclusions

This paper presents a provisional analysis of thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions Using Agricultural Censusdata and a qualified but not unreasonable spa-tial frame the analysis suggests that peri-urbanregions generate about 25 of Australiarsquos totalGVAP from less than 3 of the agricultural land

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

221

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

222

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

220

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

those described here There is some evidenceof emerging new pseudo-spatial frames for ana-lysis such as agro-ecological regions (ABS1996) and Barrrsquos (2002) social typology of rurallandscapes However even these suffer fromaggregation or abstraction and fail to get closeto the detail of local situations To avoid institu-tional blindness spatially based analysis atsub-regional and local levels is critical

The fact that analysis and reporting so oftenignore peri-urban regions can in turn be attrib-uted to the influence of sectoralism in publicpolicy Sectoral policy networks set the contextfor how policy issues are understood and dealtwith including what gets measured (Bell1992) For major sectors that have their ownpolicy networks this poses no problems How-ever minor sectors and sub-sectors that lie at theedge of policy networks literally or figurativelywill tend to suffer a deficit of analysis and polit-ical attention Viewed this way the problem forperi-urban development issues is that they sitawkwardly between the policy networks of theurban development and agricultural sectors(Houston 1995) Policy-makers cannot changethis fact of life but they can be mindful of itsconsequences The findings of the previoussection illustrate the importance of so being

Implications for the Agricultural Census

Against this background the role of the ABSAgricultural Census appears crucial It is theonly feasible source of standardised time-seriesdata suitable for monitoring agriculture includ-ing peri-urban agriculture at a range of spatialscales As such it is central to strategic intelli-gence about agriculture and vital to informedpolicy-making for industry development andresource management However in its currentform the Census is highly problematic Besideits credibility problems in peri-urban regionsrecent changes to ABS data collection mean thatthe Census has become even less lsquofriendlyrsquo toagriculture in peri-urban regions

Since 199798 the ABS has collected agricul-tural data by way of an annual sample-basedsurvey with a full census every five yearsAlthough satisfactory for surveying agriculturein broadacre regions sampling is unsuited to thediversity and scale of agriculture in peri-urbanregions This might mean that in four years outof five data on agriculture in peri-urban regionsare even more unreliable than the informationwhich the full census ordinarily provides In factthe situation is worse The statistical limitations

of sampling mean that for four years out of fiveagricultural data are now simply not produced atthe SLA level This gives an extra layer ofmeaning to institutional blindness Not only isagriculture in peri-urban regions submerged bya preoccupation with aspatial industries andsectors it is now systematically excluded fromofficial reporting for 80 of the time

These circumstances suggest that there is aneed for serious thinking about how the ABSdeals with agriculture in peri-urban regions Fora diverse and dynamic sector that producesaround 25 of Australiarsquos GVAP the inherentproblems of the Census are bad enough How-ever limiting the insights that it can provide tofive-yearly snapshots seems completely inade-quate at a time when States are seeking to adoptan increasingly strategic approach to their foodsectors

8

It throws into question the extent towhich agricultural policy in Australia can bedescribed as well-informed

Fortunately there is also some positive newson this front There is increasing acknowledg-ment by ABS staff of the problems with dataon agriculture in peri-urban regions (MichaelVardon ABS personal communication 5 April2002) There is also the emerging possibility ofthe geocoding of ABS data (Randall and Barson2001) which raises the prospect of using aspatial frame of analysis that more closelyapproximates the true extent of peri-urban influenceBoth developments coincide with acknowledg-ment of the need for better information aboutthe small farm sector at a recent workshop forrural policy-makers (Tonts and Black 2002)and a National Audit of Peri-urban Agriculturesponsored by RIRDC

These circumstances hold some promise for acollaborative re-think about the ways and meansof collecting and presenting data on agriculturein Australiarsquos peri-urban regions This wouldbe welcome A better understanding of thisoverlooked sector is necessary for informedpublic policy-making both in the agriculturesector and in those regions that are host tosome of Australiarsquos major sustainability issues

Conclusions

This paper presents a provisional analysis of thevalue of agricultural production in Australiarsquosperi-urban regions Using Agricultural Censusdata and a qualified but not unreasonable spa-tial frame the analysis suggests that peri-urbanregions generate about 25 of Australiarsquos totalGVAP from less than 3 of the agricultural land

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

221

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

222

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

P Houston

Re-valuing the Fringe

221

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

base These findings which may be surprisingto some readers become even more remarkablewhen ABS data are compared with the results ofground-based surveys and industry estimatesThe scale of reported discrepancies in severalStates suggests that official data significantlyunder-represent agriculture in peri-urban regions

In the circumstances it is not possible to bedefinitive about the true proportion of agricul-tural production value that is generated inperi-urban regions Nevertheless the findingspresented here challenge conventional wisdomand preconceptions about Australian agricultureIn the process they also demand a re-appraisalof how agricultural data are collected andpresented and suggest a hitherto unrecognisedstrategic significance for peri-urban regions andfor the agriculture that occurs there

Given these revelations two areas of researchstand out for attention in the short term Firstthere is a need to better understand the physicalextent of the peri-urban phenomenon in Australiaespecially as it affects agriculture The spatialframe used here relies heavily on inferences drawnfrom population change at the SLA level whichmay not always be a good indicator of peri-urbaninfluence especially in non-metropolitan regionsA more sophisticated approach is needed onethat uses indicators such as building approvalsand occupancy change in rural areas and getscloser to their actual impacts on agriculture Ide-ally such an approach should also be capable ofdelineating the extent of peri-urban influence ata spatial scale below SLAs and LGAs

Second the characteristics and circumstancesof agriculture in peri-urban regions need to bebetter understood so that routine ABS agricul-tural data collection can be improved There is anumber of separate but ultimately linkedresearch tasks here including

1 development of monitoring regimes that willbetter accommodate those features of agricul-ture in peri-urban regions that may contributeto under-counting (for example sequentialcropping non-contiguous landholdings landleasing periodic phases of new industriesand new entrants to industries)

2 investigations into the influence of and pos-sible alternatives to the EVAO threshold andrelated to this

3 investigations into the contribution andintegration of so-called hobby- and micro-farming into local agricultural economies(Tonts and Black 2002)

Attending to these matters will allow for a moredefinitive assessment of the proportion of GVAPgenerated in Australiarsquos peri-urban regionsHowever determining the wider significance ofagriculture in peri-urban regions will requiremoving beyond these two basic lines of inquiryIn particular research is needed to shed light onthe overall cost-benefit equation of agriculturein peri-urban regions including its environmen-tal consequences its reliance on subsidies andits level of underlying debt Performance onthese parameters relative to agriculture gener-ally will indicate whether the findings presentedhere have genuine strategic significance

The basis for answering some of theseresearch questions already exists in national-scale work such as that undertaken for theNLWRA (2002) However targeted case studyresearch is also needed For example it wouldbe helpful to know more about the potential forperi-urban industries to deliver a sustainabilitydividend by virtue of their proximity to urbanareas By way of illustration horticulture on theNorthern Adelaide Plains increasingly usestreated urban waste water thereby reducingboth demand on existing water resources anddisposal into Gulf St Vincent Likewise itwould also help if more were known about theextent to which peri-urban industries figure invalue-adding and employment generation inlocal economies and about their contributionto export earnings Answers to these types ofquestions which treat agriculture in peri-urbanregions as something more than a mere residualwill assist policy-makers to make sense of thefindings reported here

Correspondence

Peter Houston Agriculture Food andFisheries Division Primary Industries and Resources SouthAustralia GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 AustraliaEmail houstonpetersaugovsagovau

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges the assistance of Primary Indus-tries and Resources SA especially Penny Baldock whoprepared Figure 1 the Rural Industries Research andDevelopment Corporation and various staff of the Austra-lian Bureau of Statistics Thanks also to the individualsnamed in the paper and to a number of people includingJulian Morison Neil Barr Michael Vardon Fiona McKenzieand two anonymous referees who provided comment orfeedback on earlier drafts

NOTES1 For the purposes of this paper the terms lsquoperi-urbanrsquo

lsquoexurbanrsquo lsquorural-urban fringersquo and lsquofringersquo can be treatedas interchangeable Although these terms have slightlydifferent connotations in the literature they describethe same phenomenon

222

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

222

Geographical Research

bull

June 2005

bull

43(2)209ndash223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

2 Details of the NAPUA project are available from theauthor

3 The Productivity Commission report attributes thisterm to Salt (1998)

4 Tasmania the Northern Territory and the AustralianCapital Territory are excluded from the analysis because

Beyond the Suburbs

which provided the starting pointfor this study did not examine exurban regions in thosejurisdictions

5 The ABS uses a threshold based on Estimated Value ofAgricultural Operations (EVAO) to define the lowerlimits of commercial agricultural activity and hence thescope of its census frame (ABS 2003) Farm establish-ments with an EVAO below this limit are treated aslsquoOut of Scopersquo and not included in the data set that theABS uses to describe agricultural activity and produc-tion each year Currently the EVAO threshold is $5000per annum but it has changed considerably in the lasttwo decades

6 It is important to note that the Agricultural Census doesnot ask producers about value of production directlyRather it simply seeks information about volume ofproduction which is subsequently combined withwholesale price information to calculate GVAP foreach commodity (ABS 2003) Methods for calculatingGVAP by the ABS and State agriculture agencies areessentially the same The main difference appears to liein how the volume figure is derived The ABS relieswholly on Census returns State agriculture agencieshowever undertake field studies to measure area ofproduction and subsequently derive volume of produc-tion based on average annual yields as reported by fieldstaff In some instances industry bodies have volun-teered their own production data Because both sets ofstatistics use wholesale prices they each include anelement of marketing costs such as transport andcannot be described strictly as lsquofarm gatersquo values

7 The introduction in 2000 of the Australian BusinessNumber (ABN) may eventually change this practiceThe ABS has been investigating use of the AustralianTaxation Officersquos ABN register as an alternative foradministering the Agricultural Census (Gordon Cam-eron ABS personal communication 14 August 2003)

8 See for example lsquoFood for the Futurersquo (SA) httpwwwpirsagovau lsquoFocus on the Futurersquo (WA) httpwwwagricwagovauagencystrategicindexhtmlsquoBoosting growth in the food and agriculture sectorrsquo(Vic) httpwwwnrevicgovau lsquoTasmanian FoodIndustry Strategyrsquo httpwwwdsdtasgovauindcoun-cilfistratdoc

REFERENCESABS 1996

Australians and the Environment

46010Australian Bureau of Statistics Canberra

ABS 2002

Regional Population Growth mdash Australia andNew Zealand 2000ndash01

32180 Australian Bureau ofStatistics Canberra

ABS 2003

Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced mdashAustralia 2001ndash02

75030 Australian Bureau of Statis-tics Canberra

Australia ESDSC 1992

National Strategy for EcologicallySustainable Development

Ecologically Sustainable

Development Steering Committee Australian Govern-ment Publishing Service (AGPS) Canberra

Australia Parliament 1992

Patterns of Urban SettlementConsolidating the Future

Report of the House of Repre-sentatives Standing Committee for Long Term StrategiesAGPS Canberra

Barr N 2002 lsquoSocial sustainabilityrsquo lsquotriple bottom linersquolsquocapacity to changersquo and the future of rural landscapesPaper presented at

Getting it Right Guiding Principlesfor Resource Management in the 21st Century

11ndash12March 2002 Adelaide Convention Centre

Beer A 1999 Regional cities within Australiarsquos evolvingurban system 1991ndash96

Australasian Journal of RegionalStudies

5 329ndash348Bell M 1995

Internal Migration in Australia 1986ndash1991Overview Report

Bureau of Immigration Multiculturaland Population Research AGPS Canberra

Bell M and Maher C 1995

Internal Migration inAustralia 1986ndash1991 the Labour Force

Bureau of Immi-gration Multicultural and Population Research AGPSCanberra

Bell S 1992 Business and government patterns of inter-action and policy networks In Bell S and Wanna J(eds)

Business-Government Relations in Australia

Har-court Brace Jovanovitch Sydney 103ndash111

Best R 1977 Agricultural land loss mdash myth or reality

The Planner

January 15ndash16Bowie IJS 1993 Land lost from agriculture a dubious

basis for rural policy

Urban Policy and Research

11217ndash229

Bryant CR 1974 The anticipation of urban expansionsome implications for agricultural land use practices andland use zoning

Geographica Polonica

28 93ndash115Bryant CR and Johnston TRR 1992

Agriculture in theCityrsquos Countryside

Belhaven Press LondonBunce M 1998 Thirty years of farmland preservation in

North America discourses and ideologies of a movement

Journal of Rural Studies

14 233ndash247Bunker R and Holloway D 2001

Fringe City andContested Countryside Population Trends and PolicyDevelopments Around Sydney

Urban Frontiers ProgramIssues Paper No 6 University of Western Sydney PenrithSouth

Burnley IH and Murphy PA 1995 Exurban developmentin Australia and the United States through a glass darkly

Journal of Planning Education and Research

14 245ndash254

Cocks D 1992

Handle with Care mdash Managing AustraliarsquosNatural Resources into the 20th Century

University ofNew South Wales Press Sydney

Cooper M 1982 The state of the rural sector In HanleyW and Cooper M (eds)

Man and the AustralianEnvironment

McGraw-Hill Sydney 167ndash177Davis JS Nelson AC and Dueker KJ 1994 The new

lsquoburbs the exurbs and their implications for planningpolicy Journal of the American Planning Association60 45ndash59

Edols-Meeves M and Knox S 1996 Rural residentialdevelopment Australian Planner 33 25ndash29

Ford T 1997 Population Trends in Adelaidersquos Peri-UrbanRegion Geodemographic Research Group Series Depart-ment of Transport Urban Planning and the Arts and theUniversity of Adelaide Adelaide

Gardner B 1994 Highly productive agricultural land mdashAustraliarsquos limited resource In Agriculture and RuralIndustries on the Fringe Australian Rural and RegionalPlanning Network and TBA Planners Bendigo 97ndash102

P Houston Re-valuing the Fringe 223

copy Institute of Australian Geographers 2005

Golledge RJ 1959 Sydneyrsquos Metropolitan Fringe a studyin urban-rural relations Australian Geographer 7 243ndash255

Graham B 1994 Hobart explosion without growth UrbanPolicy and Research 12 264ndash270

Henderson SR 2003 Agricultural adaptation to real regu-lation on the urban fringe the chicken meat industryrsquosresponse to land use conflict in the Westernport region ofVictoria Australia Australian Geographical Studies 41156ndash170

Henderson S and Epps R 2001 Urban Fringe Land UseConflict Two Poultry Case Studies RIRDC PublicationNo 00174 Rural Industries Research and DevelopmentCorporation Barton

Hornsby Shire Council 1996 Rural Lands Study PlanningBranch Hornsby Shire Council Hornsby

Houston P 1995 Planning for Agriculture at the FringePaper presented at Regional Planning for Country andCity Bringing the Pieces Together Planning EducationFoundation of South Australia Inc Winter PlanningSeminar 15ndash16 June 1994 Adelaide

Houston P 1997 Submission to the Industry CommissionInquiry into Ecologically Sustainable Land Management12th June

Houston P 1998 Perspectives on the Spatial Pattern ofAgricultural Production in South Australia Implicationsfor Pisarsquos Evolving Role in Strategic Industry Develop-ment Planning Unpublished paper prepared for PrimaryIndustries and Resources SA Sustainable ResourcesDivision

Industry Commission 1999 A Full Repairing Lease AnInquiry into Ecologically Sustainable Land ManagementProductivity Commission Melbourne (httpwwwpcgovauicinquiry60eslmfinalreportindexhtml mdashaccessed June 2002)

Kennedy A 1993 Agriculture in the Sydney Region aFringe Activity Critical to the Regional Economy Paperpresented at Planning for Harmony Royal AustralianPlanning Institute (NSW) Annual Conference March1993 Penrith

Kininmonth I 2000 Issues Paper mdash Agriculture in thePerth Metropolitan Region Unpublished paper preparedfor Agriculture Western Australia September

Krushelnicki BW and Bell SJ 1989 Monitoring the lossof agricultural land identifying the urban price shadow inthe Niagara region Canada Land Use Policy April 141ndash150

Langworthy A and Hacket T 2000 Farming Real EstateChallenges and Opportunities for Agribusiness in theUrban Fringe mdash Yarra Valley Region Report for YarraRanges Agribusiness Forum and Department of Employ-ment Workplace Relations and Small BusinessSwinburne University of Technology Lilydale

Lapping M 1994 1992ndash93 the year in review in US ruralplanning the promise of change In Gilg A (ed)Progress in Rural Policy and Planning vol 4 John Wileyand Sons Ltd Chichester Sussex 5ndash15

Maher CA and Stimson RJ 1994 Regional PopulationGrowth in Australia Nature Impacts and ImplicationsBureau of Immigration Multicultural and PopulationResearch AGPS Canberra

McKenzie F 1996 Beyond the Suburbs PopulationChange in the Major Exurban Regions of AustraliaBureau of Immigration Multicultural and PopulationResearch AGPS Canberra

National Population Council 1992 Population Issues andAustraliarsquos Future Environment Economy and SocietyFinal Report of the Population Issues SubcommitteeAGPS Canberra

NATMAP 1980 Atlas of Australian Resources Volume 3 mdashAgriculture Division of National Mapping Canberra 3rded

Nelson AC 1990 Economic critique of US prime farm-land preservation policies Journal of Rural Studies 6119ndash142

Ng BL 1993 The Land Use Planning Process in theRural-Urban Fringe a Case Study of the Shire ofStrathfieldsaye Victoria Paper presented at Institute ofAustralian Geographers Annual Conference 27ndash30September 1993 Monash University Clayton Campus

Nix HA 1990 Water-Land-Life the eternal triangleWater Research Foundation of Australia Newsletter 2991ndash7

NLWRA 2001 Australian Agriculture Assessment 2001National Land and Water Resources Audit Land andWater Australia Canberra (httpauditeagovauANRAagriculturedocsnationalAgriculture_Contentshtml -accessed June 2002)

NLWRA 2002 Australians and Natural Resource Manage-ment 2002 National Land and Water ResourcesAudit Land and Water Australia Canberra (httpauditeagovauANRApeopledocsnationalanrm_reportanrm_contentscfm mdash accessed March 2004)

NSW Agriculture 1995 Sustainable Agriculture in theSydney Basin an Issues Paper for Public DiscussionDepartment of Agriculture Orange NSW

NSW Agriculture 1998 Strategic Plan for SustainableAgriculture mdash Sydney Region Department of AgricultureOrange New South Wales

Primary Industries South Australia 1993 Northern AdelaidePlan Planning for Primary Industries PISA Adelaide

Productivity Commission 1999 Impact of CompetitionPolicy Reforms on Rural and Regional Australia ReportNumber 8 Productivity Commission Melbourne (httpwwwpcgovauinquirycompolfinalreportindexhtml mdashaccessed June 2002)

Pryor RJ 1969 Urban fringe residence motivation andsatisfaction in Melbourne Australian Geographer 11148ndash156

Randall L and Barson M 2001 Mapping AgriculturalCommodities and Land Management Practices fromGeocoded Agricultural Census Data Project BRR6 of theNational Land and Water Resources Audit Canberra

Salt B 1998 Population Growth Ranking in Australia andNew Zealand KPMG Melbourne

Scott P 1987 Rural land use In Jeans DN (ed) Aus-tralia mdash a Geography Volume Two Space and SocietySydney University Press Sydney 201ndash236

Tonts M and Black A 2002 Changing farm businessstructures and the sustainability of rural communities andregions issues for research Sustaining Regions 1 17ndash23

Trevor Budge and Associates 1994 Rural Planning ReviewReport prepared for Office of the Environment Depart-ment of Conservation and Natural Resources Melbourne

van Gool D and Runge W 1999 Coastal Land andGroundwater for Horticulture from Gingin to AugustaResource Management Technical Report 188 AgricultureWA Perth

Wills I 1992 Do our prime farmlands need savingAgricultural Science July 25ndash27