The Queensland government is moving to sell the former Queensland Agriculture Training Colleges (QATC) property at Longreach, which has trained agricultural leaders for more than 50 years.

Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries and Minister for Rural Communities Mark Furner said the 17, 511ha site would go to market later this year.

“The land and onsite campus will be offered in up to six different configurations, with details currently being finalised, to give buyers options to purchase various parcels,” Furner said. “We will be doing this through a tender process that will consider both the price offered and the proposed community benefit component as a result of their acquisition and repurposing of the site.”

The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) is handling the open expression of interest process, which comes after by the Longreach Regional Council decided in late 2021 not to purchase the land and its buildings, after an earlier process seeking interest in the site from other proponents.

The former QATC was closed in 2019 after a review found it was no longer meeting the diverse training needs of Queensland agricultural industries. The government has sold Berrigurra Station sold in May 2021 at auction for $32.5 million.

Longreach is the last one of five Queensland agricultural colleges shut down by the government. Currently the government has no plans to open a new training college.

Former board member and local resident Rosemary Champion’s father, Sir James Walker, who was one of the founders of the college, told the ABC that the college was a vital service in regional Queensland but there was no political will to support an agricultural college.

“The state government never cared about agricultural training… It is so important in Queensland and across Australia, and we do need more young people to be well trained and proud to be in agriculture.

“It’s just been death by strangulation,” Champion told the ABC.

Champion said the government has not adequately funded the college.

But Minister Furner defended the decision and said the government is investing $9.75 million in training infrastructure for the agriculture sector across Queensland over the current and next financial years, including $3.4 million for an Agricultural Centre of Excellence in Bowen, $2 million for an Aquaculture Training Centre in Cannonvale, $3.35 million for a new Agriculture and Horticulture Centre in Bundaberg and $1 million for stage 2 of the Rural Centre of Excellence in Toowoomba.

Additionally, under the 2022-23 State Budget, more than $140 million in research and extension work will be overseen by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, jointly funded by the state government and a range of industry and research partners.