Hopeful Miners Ride the Rails that Brought the Farmers

Farmer Craig Hanlon's family has held its piece of the Felton Valley for five generations. He will have to leave if the mine is approved. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen Source: The Australian

IN the Felton Valley on the Darling Downs a battle is heating up between long-time farmers of one of the nation's most fertile food bowls and a mining company seeking to pull about 150 million tonnes of coal from the earth.

As mining and exploration rapidly expands into Australia's food basins a paradox has emerged: the infrastructure which accompanied farmers who settled prime agricultural land is now attracting miners seeking to dig that land up.

Top farming land and high-quality coal deposits regularly co-exist as a matter of geology but what has many farmers in the Felton Valley particularly angry is the land they stand to lose is to be dug up to access coal which is of such poor quality it can't be exported.

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The Australian