NSW Farmers Association, Media Release, 6 March 2026

A controversial proposal from an anti-farming environmental group risks handing control of private land to government under the guise of conservation.

NSW Farmers’ Conservation and Resource Management Committee Chair Bronwyn Petrie said the Wentworth Group of Scientists’ “Blueprint for a Healthy Country and Thriving Regions” to farmers was deeply disingenuous.

“The Wentworth Group is promising funding and support while quietly setting up a pathway for government control of private land,” Mrs Petrie said.

“That is not partnership, it’s a land grab dressed up as conservation.

“They keep saying ‘we’ as though they’re standing with farmers, but the end goal is to turn productive agricultural land into locked up private reserves, jeopardising food and fibre security.”

Mrs Petrie said attempts to tie state land use decisions to national environmental laws were particularly concerning.

“This is just a sneaky attempt to impose national standards designed for matters of national significance onto local farming decisions, where they simply don’t belong,” Mrs Petrie said.

“The idea that outside groups need to help farmers ‘understand’ their own land shows exactly where this is heading.

“It shifts decision making away from landholders, many of whom have generations of experience on their land, and hands it to desktop ‘experts’.

“This proposal entrenches the view that farmers should give up productive land to offset urban and infrastructure development elsewhere, and all it does is undermine trust and send us back to the days of pitting farmers against the environment.”

NSW Farmers has called on governments to reject any approach that removes control from landholders or treats agricultural land as expendable.