Fact check: Is the proposed Shenhua Watermark coal mine located in the middle of Australia's best agricultural land?

Updated

The conditional approval of the Shenhua Watermark coal mine on the Liverpool Plains in northern New South Wales has raised concerns about the future of agriculture in the area.

The claim: Barnaby Joyce says the Shenhua coal mine on the Liverpool Plains will be located in the middle of Australia's best agricultural land. He said: "There might be other land that is as good, but there's none better." The verdict: Mr Joyce is correct to say the mine will be located in the middle of the plains. Whilst experts say comparing different types of agricultural land is like comparing apples and oranges, they said that the land in the Liverpool Plains is among the best in Australia for broadacre agriculture. Mr Joyce's claim is close to the mark.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt gave the mine conditional approval in July, nearly seven years after the NSW Government gave Shenhua a $300 million licence to explore the area's potential coal resources.

The NSW Government will have to grant Shenhua a lease to build and operate the mine before the project can go ahead.

Shenhua, a Chinese company, plans to extract up to 10 million tonnes of coal from the open cut mine each year for 30 years.

Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce, whose New England electorate includes the Liverpool Plains, opposed the Shenhua mine and has labelled it "ridiculous".

In an interview on RN Breakfast, he said: "I don't think it's appropriate that we have what will be a super mine in the middle of Australia's best agricultural land. There might be other land that is as good, but there's none better."

Are the Liverpool Plains Australia's best agricultural land, and is the mine in the middle of it? ABC Fact Check investigates.

The location of the mine

The Liverpool Plains are located in the New England and North West Region of New South Wales.

The region has high levels of peanut, sorghum, cotton, barley and tomato production according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics' (ABARES) regional profile.

In 2012-13, cotton contributed 26 per cent ($656 million) to the value of agricultural production in the region. Cattle and calves contributed 18 per cent ($457 million), as did wheat ($451 million).

A map from the Liverpool Plains land management committee, a community organisation run by landholder representatives, shows the Liverpool Plains area includes the towns of Gunnedah, Werris Creek and Quirindi.

Professor Snow Barlow from Melbourne University's Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences told Fact Check the Liverpool Plains is "generally considered to be the plains between the Great Dividing Range, the Liverpool Range and the Warrumbungle Ranges".

Shenhua plans identify the location of the mine 25km south-east of the township of Gunnedah and 3km to the immediate west of the village of Breeza, which is in the Gunnedah Shire Council.

A document submitted by Shenhua Watermark to the NSW Government said the exploration licence granted in 2008 was over an area of 19,500 hectares.

Professor Barlow told Fact Check the mine is located on a ridge immediately adjacent to the floodplain.

The soils of the Liverpool Plains

Professor Barlow told Fact Check the Liverpool Plains area includes two broad types of soils: upland soils, and alluvial and colluvial soils.

The upland soils on the ridges derive from the older sandstone and lateritic landscape, which contains coal.

The upland soils are much lighter and less fertile than the black soils found on the younger plains between the ridges.

Professor Barlow said the soils on the plains were "deep, fertile, self-mulching clay soils" and were "the prized cropping soils because of their fertility and ability to store moisture from the variable rainfall".

There is excellent and high quality and high volume groundwater in the Liverpool Plains which is replenished from the mountains and hills which surround the plains, hence the need to manage these hills as much as the plains for agricultural security. Robert Banks, soil scientist

Robert Banks is a soil scientist and geomorphologist from independent consultancy Soil Futures. He agreed the soils on the younger plains have excellent water retention.

"They fill up with water from rainfall between crops or irrigation, and [the water] doesn't fall out the bottom as it would with other soils. This means that once the soil profile has about 80cm of moisture stored in the soil, crops can be planted and grown to maturity with no in-crop rainfall at all," he told Fact Check.

He referred to the Liverpool Plains as containing "black vertosol" soil.

The Australian soil classification published by the CSIRO defines vertosols as clay soils on fields where dry, open cracks occur at some time in most years. The most common vertosol soils in Australia are black.

The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage has a land and soil capability assessment scheme (LSC), which rates land according to factors such as drainage, climate and soil type.

It classifies black vertosol soils as LSC Class 1, which it describes as "the best cropping land in NSW".

Black earth soils make up less than 1 per cent of Australia's surface area, with major concentrations found on the Liverpool Plains and the Darling Downs and central highlands in Queensland according to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment's strategic regional land use plan for the New England and North West region.

The plan said biophysical strategic agricultural land (BSAL), or "land with a rare combination of natural resources highly suitable for agriculture," covers 15.3 per cent of the New England and North West region.

BSAL has the best quality land forms, soil and water resources which are naturally capable of sustaining high levels of productivity and require minimal management practices to maintain this high quality.

A soil survey and land capability impact assessment submitted by Shenhua to the NSW Government shows only small areas of the mining land are classified as BSAL.

The assessment said some post-mining land uses will be dedicated for agriculture.

"As a minimum, this rehabilitation will match the current area considered BSAL and endeavour to increase BSAL within the disturbance footprint longer term."

Professor Barlow told Fact Check that pockets of good soils will be lost as a result of the mine.

"[The mine] is not located on prime agricultural land but there are pockets of good soils in the mine area which will be lost," he said.

Other factors influencing the quality of agricultural land

Experts contacted by Fact Check said there is a combination of factors influencing the quality of agricultural land, not just soil type.

Professor Barlow said the area stands out as high quality agricultural land because it has both workable, fertile soil and receives reasonable rainfall.

"Both are quite limited across Australia," he said.

Professor Les Copeland from Sydney University's Faculty of Agriculture and Environment had a similar view.

"The Liverpool Plains would rank among prime agricultural land in the highest category because of the quality of the soils, the reasonably reliable rainfall and also good water in the aquifer," he said.

Mr Banks told Fact Check the dry sub-humid climate on the Liverpool Plains allows for both winter and summer crops to be grown, doubling the opportunity to produce food, compared to southern and western Australia where only winter crops can be grown.

"Summer crops probably produce 60 per cent of the crop income or more [on the Liverpool Plains]. In terms of finances and yields, and physical amounts produced for about 0.2 per cent of our cropping lands, it's rather outstanding."

The Liverpool Plains... would be one of the most productive cropping regions in Australia... but then there are others like the Goulburn Valley, Gippsland, and north western Tasmania for specific purposes, such as dairy and horticulture. Professor Snow Barlow

He said yields for particular crops resulting from the combination of soil and climate, excluding irrigation, are much higher in the Liverpool Plains than anywhere else in Australia.

"This is particularly apparent with summer crops like sorghum, where yields range from five to 12 tonnes per hectare very regularly. The national average is one to two tonnes per hectare."

The New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment's strategic regional land use plan said the Southern Plains area, comprising the Liverpool Plains and Gunnedah local government areas, has the highest agricultural productivity in New South Wales, "with an exclusive combination of volcanic soils, rainfall reliability, climate (sunshine hours, moderate temperature and protection from hot westerly weather) and availability of surface and groundwater".

ABARES figures compare the gross value of agricultural production for regions across Australia in 2012-13.

The gross value of agricultural production for the New England and North West region of New South Wales, which includes the Liverpool Plains, was $2.5 billion, equating to 20 per cent of the state's total.

This compares with the Wheatbelt in Western Australia, which produced $3.8 billion in 2012-13, north-west Victoria ($3.5 billion) and the Darling Downs in Queensland ($2.9 billion).

Water at the Liverpool Plains

Experts contacted by Fact Check said the mine could still affect the high quality agricultural land, even though it is not located on the floodplain, because it could disturb the groundwater.

The mining and petroleum gateway panel is an independent body that assesses the agricultural impacts of mining or coal seam gas proposals as part of the NSW Government's Strategic Regional Land Use Policy.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Watch John Barron present the facts (ABC News)

The panel provided an advisory report for the Shenhua Watermark project in January 2014, which said it was "reasonably foreseeable" that the mine could make some waters unsuitable for agricultural use. "Saline water quality in backfilled areas and the final void pit lake is considered by the panel to be a significant long-term risk to water quality in surrounding creeks and alluvial aquifers," it said.

Professor Barlow said: "Note from the gateway panel report that it is the groundwater systems that potentially could be significantly impacted upon by the mine. The adjacent agricultural land utilises this groundwater to irrigate their highly productive crops."

Mr Banks had a similar view: "There is excellent and high quality and high volume groundwater in the Liverpool Plains which is replenished from the mountains and hills which surround the plains, hence the need to manage these hills as much as the plains for agricultural security."

Defining the 'best' agricultural land

Experts contacted by Fact Check said it is impossible to make comparisons between the quality of agricultural land at different locations around Australia because each parcel of land has a specific purpose.

Professor Copeland said: "I don't think you can say such and such is the 'best' land. You can say this is outstanding land for a particular purpose, which in this case is for broadacre agriculture."

Professor Barlow had a similar view.

"We can never say this is the 'best' agricultural land, as one area would be better than another for different commodities and production systems. The Liverpool Plains together with the Darling Downs would be one of the most productive cropping regions in Australia... but then there are others like the Goulburn Valley, Gippsland, and north-western Tasmania for specific purposes, such as dairy and horticulture," he said.

"North-west Tasmania would be better for dryland dairy grazing, while the better soils in the Liverpool Plains would be better for wheat, sunflowers, maize or cotton."

Mr Banks agreed there are several areas of high quality agricultural land around Australia, each with a specific purpose.

"The Alstonville Plateau near Lismore is highly productive but wet and subtropical. It can produce extraordinary vegetable, nut and fruit crop yields. There are many areas in tropical Queensland in a similar position. The Hawkesbury River floodplain in Sydney has an enormous productive capacity for fruits and vegetables. None of these more humid areas, however, have the capacity to produce cereal crops of high volume and quality," he said.

"In terms of broadacre agriculture, the Liverpool Plains is quantifiably about the best there is in Australia. There's nothing that compares over long term averages with the Liverpool Plains."

The verdict

Mr Joyce is correct to say the mine is "in the middle" of the Liverpool Plains area, as is shown on the maps from Shenhua and the Liverpool Plains land management committee.

Experts contacted by Fact Check said the mine will be located on the ridges surrounding the floodplain.

They said the mine could affect the high quality agricultural land on the floodplain, mainly by disturbing the groundwater.

Experts agreed with Mr Joyce that there "might be land that is as good" as the land on the Liverpool Plains, as it is among the highest quality land in Australia for broadacre agriculture.

However, they said that it is impossible to say that there is "none better" in Australia as the quality of different types of land are fit for different agricultural purposes.

Mr Joyce's claim is close to the mark.

Sources

Topics: environment, nationals, gunnedah-2380, breeza-2381

First posted