Terry Coventry (L) and Jim Scott (R) presenting Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Barnaby Joyce MP, with a copy of the published journal papers from the Cicerone Project

Recently, representatives of the now completed Cicerone Project, former Board Chair Mr Terry Coventry and former Board member, Dr Jim Scott, met with the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Barnaby Joyce MP, in Armidale, NSW. They presented him with a copy of the published Special Issue of 24 papers which describes everything about the planning, execution and results of our work since 1998.

We put a case to him that the success of the Cicerone Project in bridging the gap between farmers and research/extension was proof that this approach could be replicated in many other agricultural regions of Australia. We suggested the creation of regional 'Fact Farms' where farmers could provide leadership and, together with researchers, extension specialists and consultants, use the 'compare-measure-learn-adopt' approach of Cicerone to gather objective evidence in the search for more profitable and sustainable farming systems appropriate to each region.