Farmers urged to utilise online opportunities

The Minister for Information Technology and Multimedia, Alan Stockdale, has urged Victoria's farmers to get online and experience the value of the Internet for their farm business, following the recent release of a  paper by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) which highlighted the poor up-take of the Internet by Australian farmers.

The ABS paper pointed to several barriers to farmers' adoption of the Internet.  In particular, it found that 28% of farmers were not accessing the web because of a lack of confidence and skills, and 22% lacked knowledge of what is available on the Internet.

Mr. Stockdale said he was concerned that such a vital sector of Australia's and Victoria's economy was lagging behind the rest of the state in fulfilling the Government's priority to bring the benefits of the information age to Victorians in all areas.

"Major initiatives such as our $5 million Skills.net program, are helping break down the barriers people can face when presented with the Internet by establishing a network of community-based Internet training and access projects across Victoria," Mr. Stockdale said.

"Networks such as Farm$mart, Wimmera Online, Womens' Web, and Western MurrayNet to name just a few, are being established to provide farmers and rural communities with affordable Internet access and training."

Funding application guidelines and details of Skills.net projects and locations are available at the Skills.net web site, located at www.skills.net.au or on freecall: 1800 629 835.

(News Release, Minister for Information Technology and Multimedia, October 14, 1998)