There are questions over whether the Acts which will replace the Resource Management Act will protect highly productive land.

The Government's announced the RMA is being repealed - with a Natural and Built Environments Act, a Strategic Planning Act and a Climate Change Adaptation Act to take its place.

Horticulture NZ chief executive Mike Chapman told Heather du Plessis-Allan this is a really good step forward, but their worry is with protecting the land needed to grow healthy food.

"We've got to be able to feed New Zealand, so it's all very well having a house, but you've also got to have food, and healthy food is really important for our health."

He says only five percent of our land grows food, and it should be easy to avoid this land.

"Land is a real scarce resource. If we don't take a whole of country strategic approach, we;re just going to be a complete cot-case." 

Yesterday, it was reported urban sprawl looks set to eat up to 31,270ha of Auckland's most productive land over the next 35 years.

A group of farmers and landowners had sought to overturn an Auckland Council decision rejecting their proposal to expand the Rural Urban Boundary and the Future Urban Zone across more than 83ha of land near Auckland Airport. But last month the Environment Court rejected the landowners' plans to rezone the land.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace says the legislation that replaces the RMA must have hard and fast environmental bottom lines.

Executive director Russel Norman says the history of the RMA was that it said you could trade off a bit of environmental destruction for a bit of economic development.

"It didn't have environmental bottom lines, and the result of that is the water contamination and all the other environmental problems we have right across New Zealand."