Strategic Cropping in Cape York – what is to be locked away in the draft Strategic Environmental Areas

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the State Government research has essentially removed an additional 1,136,587 hectares of potential good quality agricultural land through proposed Strategic Environmental Areas (SEAs) in the draft Cape York Strategic plan. These soils are suitable to a range of agricultural opportunities (sugarcane, broadscale field crops, perennial horticulture i.e. mango, citrus, annual horticulture i.e. vegetables and intensive livestock - pigs, feedlots, poultry). Conservatively, this represents a potential loss of Agricultural Production of at least $400 million at farm gate.