"What impressed me is that the organisers just offered the information for us to assess and didn’t try to ram it down our throats," Guy Milson said after attending the first public climate change forum at Goulburn.

Mr Milson runs 1000 cattle and more than 8000 sheep on 2200 hectares, and grows triticale for feed at "Cardross" south of the city and owns a smaller holding near Crookwell.

He saw value in the information that led him to help promote further climate change workshops in the district, the next to be held in Goulburn on December 19 in conjunction with Landmark and again next February 5.

Both workshops are free to landholders from within the catchment and anyone interested should contact Dale Chalker at NSW DPI, (02) 4828 6618.

Upcoming PROfarm workshops:
A farmer’s guide to managing climate risk

With the release this month of the fourth assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the lingering drought in south eastern Australia now in its seventh year, public interest in weather and climate is at an all time high.

Australian agriculture, which has over the past 200 years evolved under great year to year climate variability, now faces a new challenge as humaninduced global warming alters the known historic pattern.

NSW Department of Primary Industries has developed a oneday course to help better inform land managers and their advisors about the weather, climate variability and their relationship to climate change.

The workshop, titled The farmer’s guide to managing climate risk, is run by DPI PROfarm and is offered on demand around the State.

The course is delivered in a workshop format in five parts and is tailored to the locality and production orientation of the group, with topics including:

• Understanding the climatic history for the area.
• Understanding the weather for your area, such as sources and triggers for moisture, where winds come from and other related phenomena.
• Understanding seasonal patterns and drivers of variability such as El Nino Southern Oscillation Index, Indian Ocean Dipole and Southern Annular Mode.
• Understanding climate change science and the 2007 IPCC Global forecasts, 2007 CSIRO/ Bureau of Meteorology forecasts for Australia and what these mean for agriculture.
• Applying risk management principles to climate risk in your business.

As with all NSW DPI PROfarm courses, participants are surveyed on completion of the workshop as to whether the course met their previous expectations.

Just under 250 participants attended 16 climate workshops delivered between October 2006 and May 2007.

To find out more about this initiative and secure a place in the next workshop near you, please phone or email DPI.

Contact Michael Cashen, Tocal, (02) 4939 8953 michael.cashen@dpi.nsw.gov.au or Doug Richard, Gunnedah, (02) 6741 8331, doug.richard@dpi.nsw.gov.au