AUSTRALIA'S best farmland is the last place we should be mining for coal-seam gas.

And if we have no intention of allowing mining in prime agricultural country, then there is no point allowing mining companies to explore there.

The Weekly Times has revealed huge swathes of Victoria's prime farmland are subject to CSG exploration licences.

These areas include the Macalister and Werribee irrigation districts - two of the most important farming areas in the nation, which provide massive employment and wealth for local economies as well as real food security.

Both are forward-looking districts filled with adaptable farmers - Werribee has led the way in embracing recycled water and the MID produced a 2030 plan detailing efforts to become more efficient and reduce nutrient run-off.

These districts should not be threatened by CSG mining, and nor should other prime farmland in Gippsland and western Victoria.

The employment provided by farming in these areas is sustainable and permanent, and the wealth provided by agriculture penetrates to the grass roots of these rural communities.

The risks of mining CSG are real; the benefits temporary and the profits go to mining fat-cats.

The wealth good farming land provides to rural communities should not be stripped for a one-off cash grab by governments hungry for royalties and mining executives pandering to their own greed.

The mining industry has never shown it can guarantee it will not damage vital underground water resources.

At Kingaroy in Queensland, mining contaminated an aquifer and farmers were banned from selling cattle as a result.

In the US, CSG has poisoned multiple aquifers.

A polluted aquifer could end food production in an agricultural region indefinitely - a contaminated aquifer is impossible to decontaminate.

And the Yarram example in South Gippsland - where a major aquifer has dropped a metre a year since offshore oil production began in the 1970s, and farmers can no longer reach water in their bores - shows governments don't look after the little guys once their pockets are being stuffed with massive mining royalties.

The Victorian Government needs to show it will not be pushed around by mining giants.

It should declare prime food-producing land off-limits to mining.