Summary

IREC would like to continue to publish articles about rice research and development in the IREC Farmers’ Newsletter. The IREC Farmers’ Newsletter has a hundred percent coverage of rice growers in NSW and VIC. Sunrice gives IREC the list of growers each year so they can receive the informative Newsletter.
IREC currently distributes to 3,000 producers in the Murray, Murrumbidgee and Lachlan Valley’s. The commodities that are covered include vegetables, rice, winter cropping, citrus, grapes, olives, maize, cotton and many emerging industries, like pomegranates. In other words, any commodity that requires irrigation to be productive is included. IREC attempts to cover the whole farming system and emerging issues such as carbon. IREC needs funding to continue the publication of the Farmers Newsletter. Farmers have become to rely on it as source of information that guides them in making the right decisions for their farms to maximise profits, improve sustainability and better environmental outcomes.

Program

Rice

Research Organisation

Irrigation Research and Extension Committee

Objective Summary

The objective of the IREC Farmers’ Newsletter is to provide an easy to use form of extension that maximizes the potential for adoption of research findings by growers. With such variation in climatic conditions over the past decade, and predictions of more viability into the future industry need extension mediums that also can be flexible. This is an objective of the Farmers’ Newsletter, as it is a high quality publication that can be stored in farmers’ offices, coffee tables and newspaper boxes for future reference as the season changes. Other lower cost publications are disregarded after one use, and lost for future reference.