Increasing population demands housing which in turn requires new land to build houses and infrastructure. Often, the casualty has been productive lands that are capable of producing food. Of particular importance is high class soils which are extremely versatile and hold the potential to produce a wide range of human food at a greater rate with minimum effort and lower environmental footprint. Whilst the loss of productive soils will reduce food production, the loss of high class soils could limit future food diversity and availability.
New Zealand being an agricultural nation does possess a vast amount of productive land which is primarily used for livestock grazing. Only a fraction of the productive land has high class soils which is used mainly to produce vegetables. The close proximity of high class soils to urban centres make them more vulnerable to urban sprawl. Currently, in the absence of a national directive, local authorities are left with their own policies to protect high class soils with little or no success.
Good question, Selva and, as you will know the very productive soils in the Bombay hills area have required a concerted struggle to keep out of housing development. The good news is that there is much more commitment now to promote higher density living, especially in Auckland and height restrictions on residential development have been relaxed in many suburbs.
The threat to high-quality agricultural land on the urban fringe remains very real but there are signs of some changes in housing preferences, especailly given the very high cost of tand for residential development.
Thanks for those comments Richard.
Whilst Auckland (the largest city in NZ) has one of the greatest population growth pressures which has been a threat to high class soils in Bombay Hills which as you have identified being reconciled by smart urban planning in part, the nearby Hamilton City and Waikato District endowed with high class soils are also affected by the Auckland population spillage owing to un-affordable property prices in Auckland. I am not sure how Waikato & Hamilton are dealing with such a dynamic issue.
On the other hand, hands-off Central Government management of the above issue or leaving market forces to determine the fate of one of the greatest natural resources such as high class soils may not be such a smart option for any agri-based nation. If we are fortunate, we may see a change in the central government direction sooner than later.
Having spent 25 years living in Hamilton, the last 13 of them on the northern periphery of the city, I couldn't agree more about the challenge facing planners on the rural-urban fringe. Reconciling the competition for high-value productive dairy farming and horticulture land that is being stimulated by movement out of Auckland because of exorbitant land and housing costs, amongst other things is extremely difficult.
The challenge will be partly resolved when more New Zealanders are prepared to live at greater density and to accept that smaller houses rather than ones that have large numbers of infrequently used rooms make more sense in a context of sustainable development in the 21st century.
This issue has been a major concern around Toronto, which has grown by about 1 million people per decade for the last 50 years, mostly as automobile oriented urban sprawl, and is located on some of Canada's most fertile agricultural land. One response has been the creation of a greenbelt of about 1 million hectares surrounding Toronto in 2005 to protect both agricultural land and water sources.
Excellent move to protect the remaining soil resource Andre. The above move would have provided some certainty to the developers and farmers.
In a recent study we have found a similar picture in Kyoto, Japan, despite its long tradition of growing heirloom vegetables (see article below). Unfortunately the city is doing next to nothing to avoid this problem so far, but we are working to hopefully change that.
Paper (open access): http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1048
Interesting paper Christoph and thanks for sharing with us. Shrinking agricultural land with shrinking population in Kyoto, a complex situation.
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