Cattle and cane

Persisting with the retention of cattle properties on the edge of the urban fringe, only in order to suit some inner urban sensitivities about the loss of nearby farming land, is an unreasonable imposition on those farmers and illogical at best. Plenty of farmers would persist in being illogical and continue to run cattle despite what nature and the economy is telling them even if alternate uses were permitted: but there's a difference when it's their decision to do so, or a mandate imposed on them by others.

The same applies for sugar. The same actually applies across a range of land uses where privately owned land is prevented from adopting a higher or better use simply because a planning scheme says so, in defiance of economic logic or even common sense. If the community are so fervently attached to the idea that other peoples' private land must be retained for these particular purposes, then perhaps the community should buy them out? At the very least, it ought to be the landowners right to seek economic uses for their land, especially if the pre-existing use is no longer economically feasible.

Cattle and Cane may have been a feature of south east Queensland life even as recently as the 1980s when the population was 1.5 million. But to persist with these practices out of nostalgia or to appease shallow and ill-informed community opinion will make little sense in the Brisbane of the 2030s - when the population reaches 4.5 million.

...from time to time
the waste memory-wastes
the waste memory-wastes
further, longer, higher, older….