New report on VNI project challenged

The Environmental Effects statement released recently estimates the direct economic impact associated with the temporary loss of agricultural land during construction is about $2.77 million.

This represents about 0.3 per cent of the total annual agricultural production value across the four local government areas impacted by the project.

“While this represents a minor impact at a regional scale, individual landholders may experience more noticeable effects, including disruption to farm operations, soil disturbance and potential biosecurity impacts,” the statement said.

VFF president Ryan Milgate said presenting this as the cost of the project to agriculture was fundamentally wrong.

“The $2.77 million figure does not come close to representing the real cost of VNI West to farmers,” Mr Milgate said.

“It is an estimate of production lost during construction and only on the 70 metre wide easement itself.

“It does not account for the ongoing impact of putting a major transmission line through working farms for the next 50 to 100 years.

“These are businesses that have been carefully designed around paddock layouts, cropping rotations, livestock movements, irrigation, machinery access and farm infrastructure.

“Once you put towers and a transmission easement through that system, you permanently change the way those farms operate and the impact compounds.”

Mr Milgate said farmers would continue to deal with the consequences long after construction crews had left.

“That can include, but not be limited to longer machinery movements, awkward paddock layouts and significant efficiency reductions, restrictions on machinery operations, changes to livestock movements, difficulty accessing parts of paddocks and ongoing access requirements for transmission infrastructure,” he said.

“There are also ongoing biosecurity and weed risks from vehicles and contractors moving across properties, as well as the impact of fragmented farmland and land that becomes harder, less efficient and ultimately more expensive to farm.

"The impacts are disproportionate and have a profound impact on the ability for farmers to farm.

“We have seen this before with the WRL EES and it looks like the VNI West EES is following the same model.

“It’s a case of tell the story that the government and the companies making profits from these projects want to tell and ignore the real impacts to communities.

“These projects can’t even estimate the cost of the poles and wires they intend to install accurately, so it’s a bit rich to expect any trust in the estimate of how much they think their impact will hit the bottom lines of farm businesses.

“These impacts don't disappear when construction finishes.

“They become part of the farm,” Mr Milgate said.

The project’s proposed easement will be about 70m wide, with wider areas required at two transposition locations.

The EES identifies 3551 hectares that may be temporarily impacted during construction.

The VFF is urging farmers, landholders and members of the public to make a submission to the VNI West Environmental statement before November 16.

The project has sought to avoid areas of known agricultural infrastructure, including irrigation systems and areas of high-intensity agricultural activity such as horticulture and piggeries.

Project design has incorporated advice from agricultural technical specialists to minimise impacts through the siting and design of transmission towers.

Construction of the project would result in temporary disruption to agricultural activities on properties along the Proposed Easement over the approximately three-and-a-half year construction period.