The Federal Government has been accused of neglecting science and climate change.

It's cut millions of dollars from the CSIRO and its tried to axe climate and environmental agencies, all while the planet is tracking towards its hottest ever year.

But just how have the cuts affected climate research in agriculture? ABC Rural has discovered it's not all doom and gloom.

What's been cut?

It's been a bit of a bleak year for climate and environmental bodies. The Federal Government tried, unsuccessfully, to axe the Climate Change Authority; a Bill to abolish the National Water Commission is before the Senate; there's no more funding for the Carbon Farming Futures program; and Landcare lost half a billion dollars in the Federal Budget. Listen Duration: 6 minutes 39 seconds 6 m Listen Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Cuts to science not hurting climate research in agriculture yet ( Lucy Barbour ) Download 3 MB

One of the most talked about cuts was the $111 million slashed from the world-leading science organisation, the CSIRO. Its staff association claims one in five employees will lose their jobs over the next four years.

Doctor Michael Battaglia, the lead researcher in climate mitigation and adaptation at the CSIRO's Agriculture Flagship, suggests changes at the organisation have benefitted his area of work.

"Agricultural research at CSIRO is well and healthy, and whilst budget cuts have impacted on budget levels in parts of CSIRO, in general, staffing in agricultural research has stayed approximately the same," he said.

"I think there's probably been a 5 per cent reduction...a drop of 20 full-time employees."

The Agriculture Flagship, which was formed about a year ago, is a merger of the Climate Adaptation Flagship with the CSIRO's plant and livestock industries and its ecosystems sciences division.

It brings together about 600 scientists and a major focus is ensuring that climate adaptation and mitigation are considered in conjunction with farm productivity and profitability.

Dr Battaglia claims the formation of the flagship wasn't solely a response to funding cuts

"There was a realisation that we had a lot of cross-plumbing in the organisation and we could simplify it and increase our research efficiency through those realignments," he said.

"There was a strong feeling that incorporating [climate research] into our production-facing research was a better way of mainstreaming it and getting farmer adoption, than seeing it as a distinctly different area."

Dr Battaglia's work includes finding out whether particular types of livestock feed help reduce methane emissions while still increasing an animal's weight, whether some fertilisers that are less prone to emitting nitrous oxide, and how to measure soil carbon cheaply.

He says industry support has meant that climate research in agriculture, and agricultural research more generally, has escaped relatively unscathed.

Collaboration with with Research and Development Corporations (RDC's) has also helped.

Why research partnerships work

The RDCs collect a levy from growers, which is matched dollar for dollar by government.

In Horsham, in Western Victoria the Grains Research and Development Corporation has been studying the effects of elevated carbon dioxide levels on crops.

Doctor Jo Luck, from the Plant Biosecurity Co-operative Research Centre, used to work on that program, which has been guaranteed funding for another three years.

"We simulated future CO2, atmospheric CO2 environments, and we looked at how the insect feeds and breeds on wheat," she explained.

"We also looked at the transmission of the virus under high CO2 and what we showed was that the virus will have a much more significant effect on wheat, so we'll have reduced yield and stunting of the crop under higher CO2 levels, which is really concerning."

This year the Federal Government launched the Rural Research and Development for Profit program - $100 million in grant money for interested RDCs.

In their applications, they have to prove that their research will lead to increased profitability for farmers.

Principal scientist in climate applications at the South Australian Research and Development Institute, Professor Peter Hayman, is seeing the benefits.

"What we have with the RDCs, where we have farmer panels who are on the ground, coming up with the issues for me and colleagues to be doing research on, I think that's a real strength Australia has," he said.

He thinks climate research in agriculture has gained traction.

"There's a website called Climate Kelpie which you can go to to see some of the support systems and so on for different states and different industries.

"There's the Climate Change Research Strategy for primary industries, which is really the key players getting together and trying to co-ordinate activities and so on.

"And also the Managing Climate Variability program, which does a good job with limited funds to actually pull together some of the work and try to co-ordinate some of the research again, at both the how do we use the shorter term weather information and the seasonal information."

Fear of saying 'climate change'

While Professor Hayman is confident in the current research climate, he points to a need for a longer-term climate strategy.

"When it comes to climate change, obviously a farmer's main interest is the coming five years and so on.

"I think that is where governments play an increasing role on having that longer term view as well, in a partnership with the immediate management of weather and climate risk as they come up."

Dr Luck agrees and says now is the time for new areas of climate research to be given more attention.

"We have a very small project looking at the effect of wind dispersal and severe weather events and how that can move pests and diseases into agriculture, but other than that we don't have very much research going on in this space at the moment," she said.

"The priorities are in other areas like preparedness, early detection and response, safeguarding trade and biosecurity and community engagement...perhaps it's because it's long-term. The funding [now] there is for short-term problems and it's really difficult to get the funding for strategic research in climate change."

She says some scientists avoid using the term 'climate change' when writing their funding applications to a Coalition Government.

"I've seen that through the cycles of government, both state and federal, that there is a fear. Obviously scientists need funding and we all try and align the projects to what the government needs. So yes, there has been a change."

Even still, the general consensus amongst scientists ABC Rural spoke to is that it's not all doom and gloom for climate research in agriculture.

Most projects still have funding and the university sector and state departments are also carrying out work.

But every single scientist agreed that more broadly, the cuts to science are a serious concern, and some are worried that current climate research programs, provided by government, may not be continued in a year or two from now.