Agricultural lands are threatened as population grows and
developers lobby for the removal of lands from the ALR.
Globally competitive markets have led to changes in agricultural land-use, and
agricultural intensification has shifted production, for example, from dairy and vegetables
to berries and livestock (mainly chickens and hogs). Besides the shift in land-use, there has
also been an increase in the size of farms, presumably to benefit from economies of scale. For example, the number of cattle and calves per farm increased by 1.5 times from 1981 to
2001, while the number of chicken and hens per farm increased more than three times
during the same period [13]. These changes in agricultural practices have affected
environmental and socio-economic systems in different ways.