Farmers are hoping for a gentler, more consultative green power transition, after landholders and energy planners met face to face in the New England for the first time earlier this month.
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Armidale branch chair Andrew Cameron said he hoped the NSW Farmers' Association event, held on Friday May 13, would be the start of dialogue between energy firms and farmers.
The New England is slated for more than 8 gigawatts of power production - and associated transmission capacity - tens of billions of dollars of green power investment. The state government has designated the area to be the country's biggest renewable energy zone.
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"We're certainly not against change," he said.
"I'm sure in certain places a solar or wind installation could be a good on-farm investment, another income stream.
"But we've got to take into account the impact it's going to have on food and fibre production."
Uralla farmer and NSW farmers' association executive councillor, Richard Croft, chaired the forum.
He said the idea of the event was to first understand the dynamics of the energy sector.
Historically, planning and consultation with regional communities and the farming sector has been very poor he said.
But after sitting down on Friday with major movers and shakers of the sector, like the Australian Energy Market Operator and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, he's hoping this will change in the future.
"I'm pretty confident that the job can be done properly and that consultation and planning will improve as fast as it can be done," he said.
"We will now go on, the farmers' association and the local government association will be having further discussion."
Mr Cameron said the main pain points included a demand that developers commit to clean up their projects when they shut down.
Another is for planning authorities to set up offices locally, where projects actually are, rather than conducting planning from Sydney.
He said they will need to hold another forum in future to assess progress.
"I can't think of any other way to do it," he said.
"We need to get these people in the same room, all the stakeholders in the same room. We've got to nut this plan out. Cut through so we've got complete transparency."
The renewable energy transition forum took place at the Armidale City Bowling Club.
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