Region. Vegetable farms v housing

About 2025 hectares across Sydney is devoted to professional vegetable gardening. Just 1050 properties grow vegetables, each averaging about two hectares, according to the NSW Department of Primary Industries report, Ground Truthing of the Sydney Vegetable Industry in 2008. It contradicted previous studies that put the numbers at double these levels and noted that more than half the farms were in the southern and north-western districts earmarked for housing subdivision. About 85 per cent of Sydney's vegetables are supplied from outside the region, according to the ABS. Of some varieties – especially chinese cabbage, sprouts, mushrooms, spring onions and shallots – about 80 per cent came from within the Sydney basin. Aaron Gadiel, of the Urban Taskforce, hopes Sydneysiders saw the logic in creating more suburbs rather than keeping vegetable farms. The lobby group maintains it is not a choice between vegetable farms and subdivision. "It is between rural retreats for the wealthy or subdivided housing lots for ordinary homebuyers," he said inThe Sydney Morning Herald