NSW farmers have been allocated less money to help them adapt to climate change than primary producers and land managers in all other states under the latest Federal Government funding round.
NSW received just over $395,000, compared with allocations more than three times greater to Victoria and Queensland and $422,500 to Tasmania.
FarmReady industry grants, which were announced yesterday, totalled $6.3 million and are aimed at making producers more self-reliant.
The Federal Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke, said the money was meant to ensure that research made it from the lab to the farm. "We recognise that we need to act now to help make our primary industries more resilient - because no one will feel the effects of climate change more than our farmers."
The slimmer slice for NSW agriculture follows a Sydney Morning Herald analysis that shows the state received just 10 per cent of major infrastructure spending in the federal budget last week, while its share of the national economy is 31.8 per cent.
The Federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan, defended the treatment of NSW in the budget, saying it had been a significant beneficiary of infrastructure spending.
Only five of the 46 projects to be funded are in NSW, including Lismore Land Protection Group, which received about $153,000 to improve primary-producer knowledge and planning for climate change, and the state's dairy farmers, who received $87,000.
The Government also allocated $950,000 for five national projects. A spokeswoman for Mr Burke said two of these should be counted in the NSW total.
A project to devise best practice for organic producers nationally was based in Bellingen and worth $240,000, the spokeswoman said. A web-based strategy for helping grain growers was also based in NSW. This would bring the state's total to $795,000.
The grants were made after an independent open tender process, she said.
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