PORK producer Edwina Beveridge is frustrated at what she feels is escalating bullying by animal rights activists that she says has caused bureaucratic inertia that’s threatened to undermine positive economic development in her local agricultural district.
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She believes her story is also a cautionary tale for others to follow when submitting applications to local councils, to try and build new intensive farming facilities.
About 20 months ago, Ms Beveridge first made an application to what was then the Harden Council to develop two sites on her husband’s long-held family farming property, “Eulie”, to build shed facilities to house about 25,000 pigs. She believes the project would help generate about 20 jobs in the local community and spread positive economic activity to other businesses including buying grain for pig feed off other farmers.
But the proposed intensive piggery development was recently knocked back following rulings by the NSW Environmental Protection Authority (EPO) and the state’s Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH). The application attracted unprecedented attention on social media via a subversive anti-farming campaign.
Ms Beveridge is now considering spending up to $500,000 to fight another legal challenge after the application failed to win general terms of approval by the EPA and OEH, which meant the Hilltops Council - which resulted from a merger of the Boorowa, Harden and Young local government areas last year - had to knock back the piggery development.
“We can take the matter to the NSW Land and Environment Court,” she said. “That could cost us about half a million dollars and probably take at least another 12 months, so we’re weighing up our options.”
But Ms Beveridge’s application process was always going to stir deep emotions and ideological opposition, given her family’s long-running history of standing up to public and private harassment by animal rights activists. That includes the shock of discovering hidden cameras at her other piggery Blantyre Farms, at nearby Young in 2013, which were used to capture video footage published online to promote the activists’ cause of seeking to end intensive farming industries. She’s also applied for apprehended violence orders against individuals connected to such campaigns, including Animal Justice Party NSW MLC Mark Pearson.
Colin Bettles
Has been the Canberra Bureau Chief for Fairfax Agricultural Media since 2010 - survived the hung parliament - former media manager at Western Australian Cricket Association now covering national agricultural and rural issues in federal politics.
Has been the Canberra Bureau Chief for Fairfax Agricultural Media since 2010 - survived the hung parliament - former media manager at Western Australian Cricket Association now covering national agricultural and rural issues in federal politics.
