The Greens are calling on both major parties to listen to the community and back their bill to give farmers the power to block mining exploration on their land.
"The community is way out ahead of the government and the opposition, they want our food security protected," said Queensland's Greens Senator Larissa Waters.
"It's incumbent on the major parties to think long and hard about their position on this bill."
The Greens' bill will struggle to get passed when it's introduced to federal parliament on Wednesday, after Opposition Leader Tony Abbott this week declared he wouldn't back it.
"We're not going to support the Greens because the Greens are just against mining full-stop," Mr Abbott said.
Hopes had been raised when Mr Abbott said last week that farmers had the right to say no if they didn't want miners to explore on their land.
"This bill is specifically in response to Tony Abbott's comments," Senator Waters told AAP on Friday.
"We thought, great, this is an opportunity."
The Greens have been calling for a moratorium on coal seam gas (CSG) until the full impacts of the mining process are understood, but their proposed bill will focus specifically on empowering land owners.
"We need to protect our groundwater resources so we can keep growing food," Senator Waters said.
"It beggars belief that on our precious little food-producing land, of which we've got less than five per cent in the whole of Australia, that farmers can't say no."
The Greens are backed by an association of about 100 farmer and community groups, the Lock The Gate Alliance, which is "getting bigger every day", according to its president Drew Hutton.
Mr Hutton spoke in support of the Greens' bill at a press conference with Senator Waters on Friday, saying it was "completely unfair and unjust" for mining companies to "come willy-nilly onto land and trash it".
"We're going to mobilise as many people as we possibly can and mobilise public opinion to force governments to introduce laws that actually protect people and protect the environment," he said.
Mr Abbott has said that land-use decisions are very important but fundamentally a matter for state governments.
NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell weighed into the debate on Friday, saying some parts of the state should always be kept for agriculture and shouldn't be used for other industries such as CSG extraction.
"I'm concerned about the loss of our prime agricultural land," Mr O'Farrell told ABC radio.
The NSW Liberals pledged before the state election to introduce a strategic lands policy that would enable the community to have a say on how land was utilised.
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