Industry, including intensive agriculture such as abattoirs and cattle feedlots, is sited in enclaves, buffered by agricultural uses from residential areas. Greater levels of education, business management skills exist among landowners who develop strong support networks around innovative and new industries. Ownership becomes more diverse - joint ventures between agricultural producers become more common, with leasing of parts of existing properties. Foreign-ownership of agribusiness and farming properties increases, integrated with overseas marketing. Models of farming change, reflecting a greater diversity within farm businesses.
Agricultural enterprises show much closer links with other industries such as tourism.
Throughout the region, quality assurance systems for production and unambiguous targets and measures of environmental health are in place, understood and followed as a matter of course. Agriculture recognises the environmental costs of its activities in the cost of production. On the Coastal Plain and higher rainfall areas Sustainable patterns of rural land use begin to emerge. In suitable locations, agriculture on the Coastal Plain and high rainfall areas becomes more intensive and farm size smaller, with each type of agriculture seeking out the optimal combination of soil and water. Dairy, horticulture, viticulture, floriculture, aquaculture and farm forestry evolve in closer proximity to each other, finding ways to integrate their respective needs for water, nutrients and labour so that costs are reduced and off-site impacts minimised.