Minister for Agriculture, Tony Burke, says the project will produce monthly industry reports and help improve the quality of market information available to growers.

The project is part of a $9.3 million, three-year initiative to help industry in its transition and delivers on a recommendation by the independent Industry Expert Group, which found that industry needed access to key information if the wheat market is to operate efficiently.

"This was a major economic reform and the Rudd Government will continue working with industry to help growers take advantage of the new opportunities," Mr Burke said.

"Nineteen companies are now accredited to export wheat in bulk and more than 341,000 tonnes of wheat have been exported under the new system to eight countries."

Stakeholders from farming organisations, flour millers, stock-feed manufacturers, exporters, grain traders, and intensive livestock industries were consulted during the development of the project.

The monthly industry reports for growers will be produced by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE).

ABARE will draw on new surveys introduced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to collect data on wheat usage, export sales contracts and grain handlers’ stocks as well as its own quarterly production forecasts.

Data collection is already underway and the first report will be published in February 2009, with data up to December 2008.

The project will run until November 2011.

* Both the ABS and the ABARE reports will be publicly available on-line at www.abs.gov.au and www.abare.gov.au.