An exciting new project helping farmers more accurately record localised climate information in the Southern Tablelands has been given a big boost thanks to new National Landcare funding for Sustainable Agriculture initiatives announced by the Federal Government.

Federal Member for Hume, Angus Taylor, was pleased to announce the Tablelands Farming Systems (TFS) group would receive $29,000 under a program aimed at enhancing farmers’ abilities to predict, plan and recover from adverse seasonal conditions.

The funding will help build on existing work undertaken by TFS which has installed four moisture soil probes in the region over the past six months to ground-truth climate information, with local soil moisture data to give a more accurate forecast of seasonal conditions.

TFS will now expand the reporting and analysis by overlaying this data with available forecasting and management tools and develop locally accurate and relevant seasonal reports. TFS will also deliver farmer workshops.

Mr Taylor said TFS was using cutting edge technology enabling local farmers to better manage their farming operations and make informed business decisions.

“This is where the next generation of agriculture is heading,” Mr Taylor said. “Modern farming operations such as those aligned with the TFS are driving innovation in the use of new data-capturing technology and the Federal Government is pleased to be able to support it and help build on the good work already being done by TFS.”

TFS chairman, Tom McGuiness, said the installation of the four moisture probes at Gunning, Bannister, Lake Bathurst and Bigga last year was an exciting initiative for the group. Soil moisture data collected from the probes will be made publicly available.

“Farmers will soon benefit from quarterly seasonal forecasting reports that will use the data to develop a locally relevant picture of what is happening above and below the ground in our region.

“We see these sorts of projects, and the new work this funding will enable us to do, as vital to supporting farm businesses to be more profitable and sustainable which is a good thing for agriculture in our region.”