**Acknowledgements**

Echoing this and the future of agriculture, Keith, a local farmer notes:

*protect crops from disease and when to harvest ([37], p. 4).*

ers, will need for example:

300 Land Use - Assessing the Past, Envisioning the Future

**5. Conclusion**

*of future that you can then hand over to your grandchildren and their children.*

*The thing is we've been in agriculture for six generations. The last thing I'm ever going to do is to be turned onto another industry that has no future. Even if it had a 30-year future here, that's not the sort* 

As researchers Langridge et al. ([37], p. 4) suggest overall though, while there is public support nationally for agriculture, it is science and technology that will assist farmers in changing the face of farming and ensuring its long term sustainability. In their opinion ([37], p. 1), 'agriculture today is a very sophisticated and highly technical industry, and in Australia it has been one of our most innovative and efficient industries "which has allowed us to meet 'our moral commitment to food security in the region". To ensure that this continues to happen, they suggest that a combination of old knowledge and new is needed and that modern farm-

*the traditional knowledge of cropping systems, fertiliser regimes, field pathology and so on but will also need to know techniques for assessing crop health based on analysis of the light reflected from crops and captured on images generated from drones or satellites. In the future, farmers will also be capturing data from even more diverse sources, linking this to genetic information and predictive climate models and using the result to help them decide when to sow their crops, when to apply fertilisers, how to* 

Preparing for this brave new world, is deemed essential as 'food security is inextricably linked

As this chapter has shown, changes to traditional land uses can be contentious, none more so, than when differing visions exist for a region's future. In the NSW shire of Narrabri, land use change has been occurring for some time, although garnering the most attention has been the more recent arrival of coal seam gas development. This, in conjunction with the approval of large coal mines in an area which prides itself on its agricultural heritage, State forests, and National parks, has been met by many with anger and disbelief. These emotions have translated into ongoing acts of resistance including blockades and civil disobedience campaigns by farmers, environmentalists and concerned citizens, who traditionally have been the most unlikely of allies. Much of this conflict could have been avoided, however, if the State had moved to protect vital water sources and productive lands through the creation of exclusion zones in the New England North West as it did elsewhere. Likewise, if its' policy 'reforms' had not effectively disempowered local communities, by disallowing those affected by its strategic planning decisions to seek merit or judicial review, it might not have found itself in the position it does today. Instead, by promoting the economic imperative as the only measure of 'worth', the State has effectively signalled that it considers 'the rural' as merely a geographic location; a ubiquitous space ripe for development of energy's spatial project. Given this, confrontation by those articulating a different vision for the future, is as inevitable as it is predictable for land use change forced upon people, is rarely welcome or sought. Therefore, if the State wishes its citizens to be receptive to change, it needs to find an appropriate way

to the political stability of our region "and that of others globally ([37], p. 2).

The author wishes to sincerely thank all of the residents of Narrabri shire who participated in this research project. This research received ethics clearance from the University of Newcastle's Human Research Ethics Committee (Approval No. H-2015-0193) before recruitment of participants took place. All quotations from participants used throughout the chapter are with permission; though the participants have been de-identified.

Many thanks also to Olivier Rey-Lescure, cartographer at the University of Newcastle, who provided mapping assistance for this chapter.
