UNPRODUCTIVE land is already sitting in the Southern Downs and in order to stop the issue spreading farmers are calling out to to the next Queensland government to think long-term.

Warwick landholder Ben Cory said development has already affected the productivity of local, high quality land.

"Good country has been cut up into unproductive blocks, there's acres of country that's completely unproductive around the district," he said.

Mr Cory said there was a lot of red tape and lack of knowledge from policy makers, but any strong society requires a strong agricultural base.

"That's certainly been a change and there's more people here and tree changers and people want a country atmosphere," he said.

"We've got that here but it's certainly no doubt its affected the amount of agriculture that's being done here with different industries that want to come here and are having trouble establishing because of our population demographic."

Mr Cory said farmers had been maddened over the past 10 years by a lack of action taken on important issues such as water, infrastructure and roads.

"Things need to develop but your productive capacity has to stay up, so anything that's going to reduce your production potential in the long-run has got to be looked at seriously," he said.

"Agriculture is going to be here for a lot longer than a lot of other things.

"People forget that agriculture is a long-term thing, you make decisions it is for the long-term.

"I'd rather someone go in and be fighting for us and lose that someone goes in and goes against what's right."

Farmers across Queensland are calling on the government to get serious about addressing the planning and protection of prime agricultural land in the lead up to the election this week.

Issues such as urban encroachment, rezoning and other competing land uses are said to be having a negative and irreversible impact on agricultural production according to the Queensland Farmers' Federation.

QFF President Stuart Armitage said that prime agricultural land was a rare and irreplaceable asset that must be protected, particularly in Australia.

"Farmers are familiar with the lip service from our leaders and government on the importance of protecting prime agricultural land," Mr Armitage said.

"By 2050 the global population is set to grow to 9 billion, 2 billion more than today. Queensland agriculture is in a prime position to capitalise on a burgeoning Asian middle class that is increasingly demanding the high quality and clean food, fibre and foliage we produce.

"This however is pretty difficult without proper efforts to preserve and intensify the nation's limited prime agricultural land."