Australian graingrowers could soon be enjoying the benefits of broadband internet service like their city based counterparts as part of the Commonwealth Governments $107.8 million Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme (HiBIS).

The GRDC's Acting Executive Manager for Product and Service Delivery Mr Vic Dobos said the scheme would provide incentives for quality Internet Service Providers to deliver high-speed Internet services at metropolitan prices to regional, rural and remote Australians.

"The Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme (HiBIS) is part of the Government's response to the 2002 Regional Telecommunications Inquiry (RTI) which recommended that: "The Government should establish an incentive scheme for the provision of higher bandwidth services to regional, rural and remote areas, to enable all Australians to have access to services at prices comparable to those prevailing in metropolitan areas."

The primary objective of HiBIS is to achieve prices for higher bandwidth services in regional Australia that are comparable to metropolitan services.

The GRDC is encouraging quality providers to register for the HiBIS program to deliver high speed internet services to Australian graingrowers and access the incentives offered under the scheme. Mr Dobos said for rural communities, Internet access to research and financial information should no longer be a frustrating and elusive reality. Given the gradual improvements in telecommunications infrastructure and well-structured Websites internet connection is on the rise in the grains industry, with 75 % of graingrowers owning a computer now with a connection.

Research commissioned by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) this year reveals an increase in the use of computers and the Internet in farming. The survey found 82 % of graingrowers own a computer, and increasingly use it for business.

The GRDC's GrainZone Website, is an important resource for many growers, providing easy access to thousands of research project summaries, update papers and articles from the Corporation's research newspaper, 'Ground Cover'.

The Website is now averaging in excess of 1.8 million hits a year, with visitors staying on the site for an average of 2.8 minutes. Mr Dobos said today's modern headers, for example, are more like a giant turbo-charged computers than yesterday's threshing, dust-making machines that perhaps still linger in many people's minds. Linked into a GPS network it analyses the yield it is collecting from every patch of paddock to feed the databanks that now drive modern farming systems."

"By providing high speed internet access to Australian graingrowers the industry will be that one step closer in being able to make up the 2 per cent improvement in annual profit just to keep up with its declining terms of trade", Mr Dobos said. Mr Dobos said one of the challenges highlighted in the recently released "Australian Grains Industry Strategy 2005-2025" is the need to ensure the rapid delivery of emerging opportunities in technology to better allow growers and others in the various chains to access quality, transparent and timely knowledge.

The GRDC welcomes the incentives offered by the Government under the HiBIS program and looks forward to seeing the positive results of the mid term review. "Performance criteria for the incentive program needs to be clear, and the roll out must be measured by what it delivers to regional, rural and remote Australians" Mr Dobos said.