Queensland's sugar industry has turned to virtual reality to educate farmers about climate change.

A new program, called Sweet Success, is using the online world of Second Life to help growers improve their farming practices and reduce their environmental impact.

The pilot program uses movies made in Second Life, known as Machinima (short for Machine Cinema), to discuss how climate information can be used to reduce water use and fertiliser run-off.

Matt Kealley, senior manager of environment and natural resources for the Canegrowers industry group, said the platform could be used to show growers a number of things they can do that they may not have thought of.

"Using a video platform is a way we think we can get advice to a lot of different growers," he said.

The videos were developed for Canegrowers by the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), which has created characters known as avatars to match the personalities and outlook of real cane farmers.

Dr Helen Farley, senior lecturer in digital futures at USQ, said the virtual medium was a cheaper option than filming.

"Those avatars are much better behaved than sugar cane farmers so you can direct them and tell them what to do," she said.

"But really the reason we do it is because it's much, much cheaper than making real films."

Dr Farley said about 20 farmers had been involved in the program and had overcome their initial scepticism about the videos.

"They're pretty receptive, except they thought the characters we used were a bit buff," she said.

Dr Farley said the producers tried to create a set of storylines and characters the growers could identify with, with families and distinct personalities.

"We like to inject some humour into it as well, so we've got some funny little animals and some kind of funny sugar cane farmer jokes," she said.

Farmers overcome initial scepticism

Mr Kealley said the Canegrowers organisation hoped the medium would be used to deliver different kinds of information to its members and that they would embrace the format.

"We showed it to a couple of growers so far and they've thought 'this is interesting' but they've had that puzzled look on their face," he said.

"Growers are very conservative and using a video platform to give information is very different to what they normally get face-to-face or one-on-one.

"I find their reaction to that is slightly different, but once they get past that, the actual information that's there is quite compelling."

Stephen Calcagno is one such grower who had to overcome his initial scepticism of the Second Life medium.

"At the start I was a bit stand-offish," he said.

"But I think one of the strong things about the program is that it's not a real person.

"I think [in Second Life] you tend to focus more on the information that's being put forward, where if it's a real person you get waylaid looking at the person."

Mr Calcagno has a farm at Bellenden Ker, south of Cairns in far north Queensland, and said he found the movies' information on climate forecasting particularly helpful.

"In farming, that's the biggest thing," Mr Calcagno said.

"If we can understand the forecast, long term that will help a lot in trying to make decisions - what's the best way to go."