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4. Education

4.1 Access to information

Kondinin Group: Information for Agriculture

The Kondinin Group strives to be the premier provider of independent and credible information to improve agriculture. The Group has more than 20,000 members of which 40 per cent are in New South Wales, 20 per cent are in Western Australia, 16 per cent are in Victoria, 13 per cent are in South Australia, and 7 per cent are in Queensland (Eyres 1998). It is rapidly establishing itself as a one-stop shop for agricultural information, making use of its magazine Farming Ahead (which incorporates CSIRO's Rural Research), and Farmline - which is a user pays 1800 infofax service, e-commerce and on-line facilities. An Inquiry Management System (IMS) keeps track of inquiries, farmers and other clients paying for access to information. Each inquiry is key worded and indexed using the AGDEX classification to allow FarmLine operators to search on previous inquiries thereby improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the service. FarmLine has recently secured funding through RIRDC to make FarmLine available on the Internet. This will make the task of retrieving information even easier for customers.

The Kondinin Group has a key role in information dissemination in the Climate Risk and Yield Information Service (CRYIS) as part of the Managing Climate Variability Project, in collaboration with Agriculture Western Australia and Primary Industries South Australia (refer Section 2.2.3 above).

Eyres, A. (1998). Making the most of Kondinin Group's FarmLine Information Service. Proceedings of the 1998 National Conference of the Australasian Association of Agricultural Consultants, 24-25 September 1998, Macquarie University, pp.67-70.

Contacts

Mr Tony Eyres, Information Services Manager, Kondinin Group, 177 Great Eastern Highway, Belmont WA 6104, Ph: (08) 9478 3343; Fax: (08) 9479 7509; tony@kondinin.com.au ; http://www.kondinin.com.au/

Mr Gary McKenzie, Research and Development Manager, Ph: (08) 9478 3343; Fax: (08) 9479 7509; gary@kondinin.com.au

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