Punting on Australian food bowl

Australia's northern region - a 3 million sq km expanse of floodplains, rainforest and grasslands - is perhaps best known as being the home of the mythical knife-wielding Hollywood character Crocodile Dundee.

But the largely isolated northern wilderness that was the backdrop to the hit movie franchise is set to be transformed as the government ramps up plans to turn the region into a "food bowl" for Asia.

Canberra has released a green paper that envisions developing large tracts of land covering sections of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland into farmland.

The bounty from the land, according to the government, could produce a range of food for Asia's growing middle classes and help double Australia's agricultural output.

While environmentalists have decried the proposal as an environmentally destructive pipe dream, the government says the region, which is closer to some Asian markets than it is to the big cities in southern Australia, is ripe for development.

"Northern Australia enjoys the geographical advantage of being Australia's gateway to the Asia-Pacific region," said a spokesman for Federal Infrastructure and Regional Development Minister Warren Truss. "The large quantities of available land and water suggest there is potential for significant growth in agriculture, helping to meet demand in Asia for food."