Councillors will vote to grant a remission totalling $317,358.02 to primary production, after about 450 farmers in the municipality faced a rate hike of up to more than 40 per cent.

Councillors unanimously agreed to lift primary production rates to 12.87 in the dollar in June, however, about 50 farmers protested at last month's meeting - demanding the council resolve the issue immediately.

General manager Des Jennings was asked to compile a report and will recommend that the council drop the primary production rate down in line with residential 7.45 in the dollar rate.

If agreed to, a remission would apply to property allocated a land use code starting with L1, L2 or L4 by the Valuer-General or is classified as ``primary production''.

St Marys farmer and former mayor Robert Legge said commonsense had prevailed.

``I think someone or some people made a horrible blunder early in the piece and after about 50 people showed their horror and despair at what they had done. Commonsense has come to the fore, thank goodness,'' Mr Legge said yesterday.

``They have lost about $300,000 by dropping the rate back to 7.45 per cent, which is not a hell of a lot of money.

``If that was all the money they were worried about, why didn't they cut some expenditure out to save the hoo-ha and fuss?''

Mr Legge said farmers should not have been required to subsidise the council's $400,000 shortfall from the state's forest industry collapse in the first place.

In the report, corporate services manager Bob Hoogland said the council introduced differential rating to mitigate the impact of huge variations in the valuation changes arising from the municipality revaluation, particularly in the primary production area.

Valuation increases will still result in some farmers having a rate increase of more than 6 per cent.

The first rate instalment is due on September 6.