Forestry and farming: We need both [AU]Friday 14 Aug 2026
Our farmers produce some of the best food and fibre in the world. They employ Tasmanians, support local businesses and keep our regional communities strong. The right to farm is important and it should be protected. The forestry industry agrees with that. But forestry is also a productive use of land. Across Tasmania, farming and forestry have been working side by side for generations. Drive through rural Tasmania and you see it everywhere. Sheep and cattle in one paddock, trees in another. Crops on the flats, plantations on the hills. It isn't particularly complicated, and until recently it wasn't particularly controversial. Farmers understand better than most that not every hectare is the same. Different soils, slopes, rainfall and locations suit different uses. That's why decisions about land use should be based on the land itself, the science and what makes sense for the people who own and manage it. The right tree, in the right place, at the right scale. Provided people meet the rules that apply to them, landowners should be able to decide what they grow on their own land. That principle matters to farming and it matters to forestry too. One part of the current debate that is concerning, is the increasingly negative way pine plantations are being talked about. Pine is a crop. It is planted. It grows. It is harvested. And it is replanted. Tasmanian businesses have been successfully growing plantation pine for decades. Those plantations employ people in our regional communities and support contractors, truck drivers, mechanics, sawmills, manufacturers and plenty of other local businesses. A single hectare of softwood plantation can produce enough timber to build around four houses, manufacture about 700 shipping pallets and supply more than 100 metres of fencing timber. We have a housing shortage. We want to build more homes. We want those homes to be affordable. And we want as much of the money spent building them as possible to stay here, supporting Tasmanian jobs and Tasmanian businesses. For that, we need timber. Plantation forestry also gives landowners another option. On the right land, trees can provide shelter for livestock, help with erosion and soil stability and provide a long-term income stream alongside other farming activities. None of this means every farm should become a plantation. Of course it shouldn't. Good agricultural land is valuable. Tasmania needs productive farms and successful farmers. Equally, land that is well suited to growing trees should not suddenly be regarded as less productive simply because the crop being grown takes 25 or 30 years rather than a season. People who make their living from the land have a pretty strong incentive to look after it. Their businesses depend on it, and often they hope their children and grandchildren will still be earning a living from that same land decades from now. That long-term view matters in forestry as much as it does in farming. The truck driver carrying timber today might carry agricultural produce tomorrow. The local mechanic fixes machinery from both industries. Both industries use local contractors, shops and services. Tasmania's future won't be strengthened by picking winners between two industries that have successfully coexisted for generations. It will be strengthened by experienced landowners making good decisions about their land, backed by good science and sensible rules. There will be places best suited to farming. There will be places best suited to forestry. And there will be plenty of places where the two continue to work side by side. That's simply how regional Tasmania works. Source: Drew Freeman is CEO of the Tasmanian Forest Products Association | ||
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