Linking Australian woolgrowers with research - the South Roxby Project.

The South Roxby Project is a research, demonstration and educational project for wool production systems in the high-rainfall zone of south-eastern Australia. The need for the project was identified by the failure of many Australian woolgrowers to adopt simple yet cost-effective strategies generated by over 40 years of agricultural research. A model of "participatory research", involving producers, consultants and researchers in the identification of industry problems and research priorities, generated a portfolio of highly relevant new research. This was integrated with an educational program, based on experiential learning and group theory, to present the results of past and recent research in a "whole-farm" context. Many participants also accessed the farm consultants facilitating the group activities on a one-to-one basis. This was critical to the learning process, enabling producers to move from an "awareness" of research findings and increased knowledge of the "profit drivers" for their businesses, generated by the group activities, to the appropriate adoption of technologies on their own farms. High adoption rates were achieved for specific technologies, including price-risk management, worm control and genetic improvement. After 4 years, 50% of participants were using objective measurement and quantitative genetics. This is a significant finding, as historically it has been very difficult to convince Australian woolgrowers of the merits of this technology. A demonstrated improvement in the profitability of a sample of farms provided further support for the positive impact of the project.