Given the importance of the emerging debate facing agriculture and its future relationships with the mineral resources industry, Mrs Simson will be able to provide first-hand experience and knowledge. She knows the dramas facing landholders in their dealings with the explorers, and the minefields to be negotiated.

It is obvious – by her margin of 232 to 147 votes – that confidence in her ability, grassroots knowledge, strategic thinking and experience was widely held by the association’s membership.

The election of a woman to lead the state’s premier farming advocacy group for the first time is also a world away from attitudes of 100 years ago.

Mrs Simson will face some interesting challenges during her term, as many landholders in areas described as prime agricultural land feel uneasy, even stressed, about the push by explorers keen to harvest gas and coal reserves at a time when there is massive world wide demand for these exports.

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The visit to Tamworth and the region yesterday by the vice-president of coal seam gas miner Santos should go some way to promoting understanding about how the miners will want live cohesively with agricultural production.

James Baulderstone stakes a claim in understanding how small rural communities work and think. He grew up on a farm near the small town of Mannum in SA, population 2000.

However, he has plenty of work in front of him to explain how the explorer will carry out its tasks while working in harmony with farmers.

He said the company’s more-than-20 years of mining in Queensland had developed greater understanding, and in time this goal would be reached in this state’s north-west.