A survey of Australian farmers' attitudes to climate change has found many are concerned, and want their politicians and agricultural representatives to do more.

More than 1,300 primary producers, from a wide range of industries and states, responded to the survey which was organised by Farmers for Climate Action.

Of those who responded, 80 per cent wanted politicians to do more about climate change, including renewed and secure public investment in research, development and extension programs, to help farmers adapt to a more volatile climate.

The same number of farmers wanted their agriculture sector representatives to do more to advocate for stronger action.

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Peter Holding, a mixed farmer from Harden on the NSW south-west slopes and long-time climate science advocate, said there was a clear message that farmers wanted strong political leadership on the issue.

"Economics you can work around, debts you can work around, finance and all the other issues that we've got [as farmers], but if we continue to ignore climate change and it continues to get worse, I think we're in real big trouble," he said.

Climate change concerns go beyond the label

Not all farmers are comfortable subscribing to the idea of climate change, the survey found.

According to the survey, about 60 per cent of farmers believed in climate change. But even more respondents said they were concerned about changing conditions they had observed on their properties, even though they were not prepared to call that "climate change".

"Eighty per cent of farmers acknowledge that things are happening on their farm: whether or not they accept climate change, that doesn't really worry them. Quite frankly it's kind of irrelevant," he said.

"They're suffering more frequent droughts, less rainfall, more bushfires, increased weeds, and have made the statement that it's been happening with more regularity.

"They don't know why it's happening, and they're not prepared to accept climate change, but what we're trying to point out to the politicians is that these things are happening."

Mr Holding acknowledged there may have been an element of self-selection in farmers who chose to complete the survey, but noted that with 40 per cent of respondents saying they didn't believe in climate change, the sample was far from unanimous.

Shift in farmer attitudes

West Australian merino and grain farmer Christie Kingston said she was not surprised by the survey results, because her family, and her wheatbelt district of Goomalling, were already feeling the effect of a changing climate.

"My father-in-law had half as much land but could run twice as many sheep, and the stats support that," she said.

"In the south-west of WA, we've had a 19 per cent reduction in winter rainfall — May, June, July rainfall — since the 1970s, and everyone can see that.

"Also, fire conditions are worsening. Our community emergency services people are saying that the season's longer. For example, in the last seven days in Goomalling, everyone wants to get their crops off, everyone's been fighting fires on three of those days, and two of the days have been harvest bans. They're exhausted."

Mr Holding said he had also noticed a shift in attitude.

"Five or six years ago, I would have said maybe 10 per cent of farmers were supportive of climate change and the rest agnostic or whatever you'd like to call it. Now it's up around 60 per cent," he said.

"We spent three days at Henty [Agricultural Field Days in southern NSW] and we asked pretty much everyone who came along [to complete a survey] and we got 500 surveys filled out.

"In the past when I've done that, it would be unusual to go through the day and not be told off or abused, and that did not happen.

"[Instead] we were able to engage in discussions, a good few people were unsure or deniers, but they were still prepared to engage in a discussion about what was happening on their farms and what they thought should be done."