Farmers in the fertile farmlands of Dandaragan in Western Australia's Mid West are taking on the unconventional gas industry, saying the area should be out of bounds to frackers.

The area has been earmarked as a possible agriculture hotspot under the WA Government's $40 million Water for Food program.

However it is also covered by a gas exploration permit held by Perth-based company Transerv Energy.

Farmer Ian Minty, 77, has argued the two land uses were not compatible.

"It's not a big proportion of the state that's arable and good farming land," Mr Minty said. "To consider putting that at risk just to get quick bucks, I just think it's totally ridiculous."

Mr Minty and his neighbour, potato farmer Mick Fox, have both refused to give Transerv Energy access to carry out an environmental survey, despite the company saying it had no plans to use the controversial gas extraction technique known as fracking.

Wyoming farmer John Fenton says fracking has affected his family's health. ( ABC News: Claire Moodie )

Their fears come as John Fenton, a farmer from Wyoming in the US, who is touring WA farming communities on behalf of the anti-fracking group, Lock the Gate Alliance.

Mr Fenton said he had 24 tight wells on his farm in Pavillion, Wyoming.

"We can no longer use our bore water, our groundwater has been contaminated, we now have to ventilate our home anytime we take a shower to prevent the build up of methane in our home," Mr Fenton told 720 ABC Perth.

"We've suffered health impacts. My wife has lost her sense of smell, her sense of taste."

Fracking safe, lobby group APPEA says

Mr Fenton's visit has been dismissed by Stedman Ellis, chief operating officer of the oil and gas industry lobby group, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA)

"I think Western Australians should think twice about taking advice from an activist rancher from the other side of the world, when they can look to advice from their own WA Department of Health or the Chief Scientist of Australia," he said.

Stedman Ellis says WA farmers should not listen to John Fenton. ( ABC News: Claire Moodie )

"(They have) both said that fracking can be undertaken safely with proper regulation.

"There is no proven link between hydraulic fracturing activity and water contamination, either in Wyoming or in fact anywhere in the world."

Mr Ellis said the unconventional gas industry was still in its infancy, but agreed with speculation that the resource could potentially power Western Australia for 500 years.

"The potential resource could be as big as the resources offshore," he said. "That's going to take many years to prove up.

"But this exploration activity is really the first step in understanding, do we have the same potential onshore?"

'I just don't believe it'

But Dandaragan farmers do not want to be part of the experiment.

Mr Minty said he had spent 40 years building up his farm, which he owns freehold, and he did not believe the industry's reassurances.

Ian Minty says farmers should be allowed to veto gas exploration. ( ABC News: Claire Moodie )

"I'm very cynical, I'm 77 years of age and I just don't believe it," he said.

"If the climate keeps drying as it has been, the only way we will be able to grow any kind of crops is by irrigation. And if we foul the aquifers with these chemicals and the gas, then that option won't be open to us."

Mr Minty said farmers should have the right to veto gas exploration.

Transerv Energy was not available for comment, but in a recent letter to a newspaper the company said its work was focussed on understanding the environmental sensitivities of the area and if there was "any gas in the area at all".

Hydraulic fracturing has been used at its other project in the Perth basin, 50 kilometres north of Dandaragan, called the Warro gas field.

It was recently estimated in an analysis for investors to contain 8 to 10 trillion cubic feet of gas.