20. Why and How to Sustain Agriculture Around Our Cities: A Case Study of Sydney, Australia

In the peri-urban regions that surround cities traditional industries, such as agriculture, tend to suffer as the process of urbanisation occurs. These industries tended to survive because their proximity to urban centres provided them with all the advantages of a natural monopoly in selected products. However, this natural protection is eroded by improvements in transport systems, amongst other factors, and in the end the traditional industries succumb to development pressures. In the past this process of change has not been managed well, with many instances of peri-urban regions and industries being swallowed up by new urban developments. The purpose in this paper is to outline an example of a program that is designed to manage the interests of those in the traditional industries in peri-urban regions as the process of development occurs. The program is known as the Hawkesbury Harvest and it is applied to the peri-urban region to the west of Sydney, Australia. In this paper, the history of agriculture in the region is initially presented in order to provide a context of how Hawkesbury Harvest operates. The region itself had a number of natural assets that protected it from competition, but these ceased with the development of improved transport networks. Hawkesbury Harvest operates within a competitive environment promoting the products and ecosystem services of traditional activities in a region that is subject to severe urban development pressures. It serves to manage the process of change in an ever changing environment and acts as a template for other regions suffering from similar pressures.