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The Hunter Thoroughbred Breeders Association has called on the thoroughbred industry to support and participate in the NSW Farmers Rally in Sydney on May 1.

Community leaders, industry groups and concerned citizens will unite in Martin Place in the Sdney CBD to hold a peaceful rally.

Led by the NSW Farmers Association, groups such as the Country Womens' Association, the Hunter Valley Wine Industry Association and the Hunter Thoroughbred Breeders Association will call on the State and Federal Governments to protect the Hunter Valley's food, water, health, jobs and the future of strategic industries and communities.

This year the Government will decide upon the Hunter Valley's land use policy and consequently the breeding industry's future.

If it is based on the Government's current Draft Strategic Regional Land Use Plan for the Upper Hunter mining encroachment will continue to threaten the future of the breeding industry.

The HTBA says the May rally is not an anti-mining protest but a call to Government to genuinely protect the prime agricultural lands, precious water resources and the critical industry clusters it has identified and classified as nationally significant.

The rally is a call to the NSW Government to honour its election commitments and deliver the protections it promised and will be proof of the degree of community concern over the need to protect rural industries, lands and water.