AgForce president John Cotter said if the government ploughs ahead and takes one million hectares out of production by stopping regrowth clearing it will result in lost jobs, lost farm production, lost export earnings, lost biodiversity, and severely deplete the goodwill of the farming community.

"Farmers are outraged at the reopening of the vegetation management debate, which we were told was settled in 2004 when natural vegetation clearing was banned – with specific exemptions negotiated for regrowth control, thinning, encroachment and weed control," Mr Cotter said.

"There is huge anger and uncertainty about the proposal to use blunt regulatory instruments to regulate regrowth management based on wildly inaccurate maps and mapping systems."

AgForce's submission to the Government outlines why it believes the consequences and extent of impacts of the proposed changes are likely to be far wider than may have been anticipated by the Queensland Government.

It says the proposed changes lack any sense of social justice, fairness or equity for landholders who produce food, generate jobs, manage the environment and populate inland Australia for the benefit of society.

AgForce says it is unacceptable for one hectare of productive farmland to be locked-up at the expense of the extreme green movement making demands in the heat of an election campaign for politically expedient purposes.

The AgForce submission focuses on four key aspects:

• economic impacts demonstrated through case studies;

• uncertainty created by the threat of new legislation and reflected in property market hesitation;

• removal of productive farmland at a time of global uncertainty and global food shortages; and

• the questionable environmental outcomes that will result.

The submission outlines the cumulative impacts of the moratorium, focuses on property rights and the diminution of property values, the impact on food and fibre security and the relevance of the federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, as well as other issues.