Australia DOES need Agriculture.

[Murray Fletcher]

A recent posting from Richard Bejsak (or to give his
full adopted title, H.R.H. Vratislav Richard Eugene
Maria John Baptiste Bejsak of Collorado-Mansfeld,
84th Duke of Siebenlugner MUDr., RNDr., Entomologist
and Photographer) concerned the closure of NSW
Agriculture's Biological and Chemical Research
Institute, at Rydalmere in Sydney's West.

To avoid any misinformation being posted concerning this
closure I provide the following information.

The Institute will close on 1 February 1997 and the site
sold. All permanent staff at the Institute will be
relocated to other research facilities within NSW.
This move is designed partly to boost agricultural
research in country areas of NSW and partly to avoid
the cost of maintaining an agricultural research facility
near the demographic centre of Sydney, Australia's largest
city.

The major collections held at BCRI, including HERB-DAR
(the major component of the Australian National Plant
Pathology Herbarium) and the Insect and Mite Collections,
will be relocated to Orange, in the near West of the State,
together with all associated staff. The Head Office of
NSW Agriculture is also located at Orange and we have
been assured that the Department will not step back from
its responsibilities under the terms of the NSW Agricultural
Scientific Collections Trust Act 1983 which provides
statutory protection for the collections.

All assistance possible has been offered to help solve
insurmountable difficulties that individual staff members
may face. No forced redundancies have been proposed.
Voluntary redundancies will be offered for those staff
unable to relocate.

Taxacomers who have colleagues located at BCRI Rydalmere
may wish to contact them for further details.

Murray J. Fletcher
Senior Research Scientist
Director of the Collections
NSW Agricultural Scientific Collections Trust
Biological and Chemical Research Institute
PMB 10 Rydalmere NSW 2116
Australia
email: fletchm at agric.nsw.gov.au