Increasing use of Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) in ex ante research evaluation has not been accompanied by consensus on the increased returns flowing from the evaluation effort. There are likely to be a wide range of views held by researchers, agricultural economists and research managers on how...

The decision to invest in pasture improvement raises various questions for the livestock grazier, with the most pertinent being about the potential returns and risks. In the high rainfall zone of south-west Victoria, researchers have trialled novel perennial pasture systems with the aim of...

The Queensland Fruit Fly (QFF) — Bactrocera tryoni — poses a significant threat to horticulturalproduction in Victoria causing losses of fruit and jeopardising access to interstate and internationalmarkets. The Victorian Government implements and largely funds an area freedom program...

Fifty years of Australian academic literature about farm management is surveyed and reviewed chronologically and methodologically. Farm management started as a field of academic inquiry during the 1940s, and at the end of the first decade most of the major emphases which were to predominate over...

The price farmers pay for farm land can be a critical determinant of the continued success or eventual failure of a farm business. A decision support model has been developed to make explicit the usually implicit assumptions about expected profitability, financing and debt servicing aspects of...

Farming systems throughout the Murray-Darling Basin are under increasing scrutiny from the perspective of ecological sustainability of farm and catchment systems. In northern Victoria, the dairy industry is a major user of water, and contributes to the environmental issues. Changes in irrigation...

Dairy Australia has delivered a program entitled DMF involving a series of activities to enhance the expertise of dairy farmers and encourage their use of expert services. A substantial investment of $5.2m (adjusted to 2005 dollars) has been made by Dairy Australia in the program. In this...

The dairy industry in northern Victoria faced dramatic changes between 2001/02 and 2002/03. Drought resulted in a substantial decrease in availability, and subsequent increase in price, of irrigation water and supplementary feed. Most farms recorded substantial net cash flow deficits. Prior to...