FARMERS IN Australian state of New South Wales are to benefit from new 'right to farm' legislation, protecting them from legal and physical 'nuisance' from the public – with maximum fines of $22,000 or three-year jail terms.

Although the legal shake-up is largely based around new agricultural concessions on planning permission and neighbour boundaries, NSW agriculture minister Adam Marshall highlighted the impact on animal activists and other protestors that might seek to impede legitimate farming activity: "So if you trespass on a farmer's property as part of a group, you open gates and leave them open, you let stock out, whether they be pigs, sheep, cattle, poultry — you're committing an aggravated trespass offense, and you can go to prison for up to three years," he said.

"If activists want to go chain themselves in an abattoir, on farms or in dairies, you risk going to prison for three years."

Aside from siding against organised protest, Mr Marshall said that the new laws would introduce a presumption in favour of farmers in cases where non-farming neighbours might object to the effects of legal farming practice, whether that be odours, slow traffic or new construction: "It will protect farmers who are going about their legitimate farming activities and protect them from complaints or actions that are taken against them in the courts, by neighbours or other third parties," he said. "So if you're a farmer, who's farming the land, as you always have – you are doing the right thing."

Australia's Federal Government had asked its states and territories to work with it to beef up farm trespass laws after a spate of activism on farms and abattoirs in the past 18 months. Both farmers and opposition politicians have welcomed the proposed laws.

NSW Farmers president James Jackson said if the legislation is passed, it would provide some relief to farming families: "In addition to the biosecurity threat to local food and fibre production, farm trespass causes enormous anxiety for farming families and their employees," he said. "It is welcome news that NSW will have toughest penalties in Australia."