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For many years, farmers have enjoyed the luxury of free access to technical information from public sector extension services, but State Departments of Agriculture or their equivalents are retreating from providing front line advisory services on a one-to-one basis to farmers. This leaves farmers to seek other avenues of technical information, most commonly from farmer-group activities facilitated by public or private sector agronomists or Landcare officers or on an individual basis from private sector sources. More reliance is likely to be placed on rural merchants, the general merchandise suppliers in country towns, as a source of technical, farm management information. Rural merchant staff need to be trained to accommodate the demand and to ensure quality of information delivery. This report, commissioned by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC), recommended that: the willingness of the 4000 rural merchant staff in Australia to be facilitators of agricultural technology transfer be established; a set of core critical skills be determined; a skills audit and a gap analysis be undertaken; and an education plan be developed as a framework for delivery of appropriate training for the rural merchant sector. Well informed rural merchant networks have the potential to be a direct and potent benefit to growers and will help to underpin productivity improvements across a range of rural based industries in the context of sustainable farming systems. Show less