Australia has a limited area of land suitable for the production of food, fibre and forest products and governments are under increasing pressure from relevant industry groups to release those small areas of land that are not already committed. Land use decisions of this type are predominantly political ones, but the politicians are influenced by whatever facts can be mustered to support competing interests. This article presents a number of measures of the likely efficiency and regional economic impacts of plantation forestry and agriculture, based on sugar cane in the Herbert Valley, where such a land use decision must be made by politicians in the near future.
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