Sansom was in Perth to attend a meeting for the Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation.

Macfarlane worked with Sansom, who passed away last week, on the executive of the Queensland Farmers’ Federation in the 1990s.

Sansom went on to become QFF president between 2001 and 2011, a tumultuous time when commodity prices were surging and a wave of new projects were proposed in Queensland, including Australia Pacific LNG, Gladstone LNG and Queensland Curtis LNG, which end up costing about $70 billion combined.

During that time QFF was on the front foot, negotiating a new land access regime in the state which Macfarlane said were “fair and reasonable” and was a “significant improvement” on the system it replaced.

He helped draw up a framework that farmers could understand.

Sansom, who originally helped establish the QFF in 1992, hung up his hat as its president in 2011 after a decade in the role when natural disasters also hit the state’s agriculture sector.

Upon retiring, Sansom said that much of his presidency had been occupied by a relentless drought that had placed severe financial and emotional stress on many farmers and stretched the resources of farm organisations.

“Gary was widely respected by QRC members for his preparedness to give the resource industry a fair hearing on any issue and his advice was greatly valued by us,” Macfarlane said.

Similarly, on strategic cropping land, Sansom worked with the resources sector to ensure farmers had a fair say in identifying and protecting Queensland’s most productive soils. 

Macfarlane said Sansom had earned enduring respect within the resources industry for his “calm yet determined” approach to find a reasonable solution that worked for all the stakeholders.

“Sansom was a once-in-a-generation leader whose hallmark was being prepared to roll up his sleeves and thrash out sensible solutions to the hard issues,” Macfarlane said in a statement. 

“He was a great communicator, effective negotiator and a tireless advocate for improving agriculture for rural and regional Queensland.”

Current QFF president Stuart Armitage said Sansom “was and will remain an absolute giant of the industry both in Queensland and nationally”.

“His greatest strengths were his ability to work with varied and often diverse stakeholders within the agricultural sector and other industries,” Armitage said. 

“His ability to work consultatively and constructively for the broader vision of the sector resulted in meaningful outcomes for industry. It was this quality that won him the respect within and outside the agricultural sector.”

Sansom is remembered by his wife Julie, family and friends.