Farmers want to force renewable energy developers to maintain the agricultural productivity of the land.
Producers have been frustrated by a lack of planning and consultation for the rollout of projects including the location of transmission lines.
At their annual conference in Sydney, farmers have been fired up over renewable energy and want more control over how projects are planned.
Delegates also called for payments to farmers hosting renewable energy projects to be paid for the life of the project and not the 25-year term currently being offered.
“Delegates are expressing their frustration … most are saying in living memory they can’t remember anything so badly thought through,” freshly re-elected president of NSW Farmers Xavier Martin said.”The impact on the landscape on some of our prime agricultural land is just appalling.”
While NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe acknowledged there had been problems with the rollout of renewable energy she said things were turning around.
“I know many of you struggle with the renewable energy zones… the rollout is complicated but the rollout is well under way,” the minister told delegates on Wednesday.
“I’m not going to tell you that it’s perfect, but it is turning it around.
“I would hope that we are learning all the time from the mistakes of the past and we’re getting better on the way through,” she said of projects that had divided some communities.
The minister again ruled out sending transmission lines underground.
“It is too expensive and it will take too long, our government’s been really up front about that,” she told reporters.
NSW Premier Chris Minns also addressed the conference on Wednesday acknowledging the threat posed by fire ants and feral pigs.
The premier outlined efforts that had seen 110,000 pigs in a nine-month period but conceded there were still feral pig ‘hotspots’ across the state.
The power of the supermarkets was again discussed by farmers who called for greater fairness and expanded competition in the food and retail supply chain.
It followed a Woolworths employee being ejected from the NSW Farmers Horticulture meeting on Monday after failing to disclose that they worked for the supermarket giant.
Committee chair Jo Brighenti-Barnard, who was overseeing proceedings when sensitive grower information was being discussed, described the actions as underhanded.
“Once we discovered they did work for Woolworths and didn’t identify themselves we thought ‘what are they actually doing there, why not be open and honest?’,” she told AAP.
Woolworths said it wasn’t aware the employee was attending but called the incident “an unfortunate misunderstanding”.
The woman had attended in a private capacity as “a university student involved with a startup incubator that’s looking to create an app to support farmers”.
She thought it would be a good opportunity to connect with farmers to help inform the app’s development, Woolworths said.