Farmers will be able to apply for grants of up to $1500 a year to help cover the cost of travel, accommodation and childcare costs for approved courses.

Speaking at the opening of NSW Farmers Association’s annual conference in Sydney on Tuesday, Mr Burke (pictured) said industry associations and natural resource management bodies could apply for grants of up to $80,000 a year to help support their members in adapting to climate change.

He said the outgoing FarmBiz program developed by the previous government had not been sufficiently directed at the challenges farmers would face.

The new scheme, called FarmReady, was part of the $130 million Australia’s Farming Future initiative announced in the 2008-09 federal Budget.

Areas the courses would cover include understanding the implications of climate change, integration of new techniques to address the impacts, adaptive management, integrated catchment management, and fire and flood management.

The first courses were expected to start in the next few months.

Mr Burke said the new scheme followed the release of the joint CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology report showing that in the worst scenario droughts would occur twice as often and cover twice the area.

He told conference delegates the Government’s approach to climate change had three factors: adapting to what was happening, reducing carbon pollution, and making sure what Australia did nationally related to global approaches.

* More coverage of the NSW Farmers Association AGM in The Land this week.