Title: Vegetation clearing on roadsides: fire and weed control at issue
[By ROSLYN LANIGAN: Weekly Times, 28 Oct 2009] BATTLE lines have been drawn between farmers and councils over the right to clear roadsides. Landowners in the Wimmera have accused Hindmarsh Shire Council of putting the environment ahead of the community by banning roadside cropping and failing to clear roadsides before the fire season, which officially began yesterday.
And farmers in the Otways are frustrated by red tape preventing them from carrying out fire prevention works. A group of farmers at Dimboola say Hindmarsh Council's decision to halt roadside cropping will spell the end of a 40-year arrangement that saw crop profits returned to the community. The Minyip Road Farmers group said it had contributed more than $200,000 raised from roadside crops to the Dimboola Swimming Pool Committee for infrastructure improvements since 1981. The group said funds from crops grown along Minyip Road had also helped pay for the pool's construction in the 1960s.
Minyip Road farmer Brian Hedt said Hindmarsh's decision to ban roadside cropping would have farreaching effects. "Not only will it take volunteer funds out of our community, but it will create all sorts of issues with weed control and fire hazards as well," Mr Hedt said. "We have only been cropping one side of the road and the opposite side of the road is full of two-metre-high weeds. It's a fire risk."
Article: WeedsNews174 (permalink) Categories: :WeedsNews:fire, :WeedsNews:roadside weeds Date: 28 October 2009; 10:29:03 AM AEDT