The Liverpool plains is one of the best (and maybe the best) agricultural regions of Australia with deep fertile black clay soils and sufficient rainfall and sunshine for production of durum wheat, sorghum and many other crops. It is also a region which has regularly been in the news. First it was related to the over allocation of groundwater to the local irrigators, but more recently because the area is underlain by a rich coal seam. The NSW government would like to sell the mining rights, and, understandably, the local community is none too pleased. All this is understandable, I would not be happy with mining in my backyard either. So basically we have a trade-off between mining and agriculture. But the real question that arises is what the best solution is for Australia and the Australian society in terms of sustainability, resilience and future prosperity. I will try to answer this question from a philosophical point of view rather than going into the specific details of the case. I have commented on this earlier
Agriculture in the area is currently prosperous, but not all of it would strike me immediately as sustainable. The over allocation of groundwater resources and the severe cutbacks (up to 90%) in several of the groundwater areas mean that not all practices are sustainable. In addition, the area has some salinity problems, some of this is natural, Lake Goran in the area is a terminal lake; some of this is probably due to clearing and agriculture. Both are examples of difficulties in terms of sustainable farming operations. However, as a pointed out above, the land is very rich and the heavy clay soils are resilient.
On the other hand, mining is the opposite of sustainable use of land, so we are caught in a difficult spot here. We should not discard the mining option straight away, as it is a matter of scale in time and space. The definition of sustainability is no longer helpful. In the definition of sustainability, there is reference to the well being of future generations. This means we need to identify whether the future generations are more assisted by digging up and selling coal and investing the money, or by the continued agricultural production.
Interestingly, the Greens have decided to take the side of agriculture, also not an obvious marriage given the amount of groundwater use and questions about agricultural sustainability in the area. The Caroona Coal Action Group also has not yet given up
I am taking a resilience point of view, this means that I am assessing the activities in terms of which is best able to withstand a shock. Surely agriculture activities would be more resilient than mining, but that is my opinion, I have no scientific proof. However, mining activities are vulnerable to currency fluctuations, global recession, and there are further technological and climatological risks. Agreed that most of the engineers have worked out ways to deal with most of the risks, but the risks exist. In contrast, I feel that Agriculture is relatively low risk, although modern mechanised agriculture has some of the same risks as mining. However, as an activity, there are more opportunities to continue agriculture after a major shock than to continue long wall mining, even without looking at risks to aquifers and water supplies.