Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) is a federal research branch of the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, located in Canberra, Australia. ABARES was established on 21 August 1945 as the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE), and is also involved in commercial consultancy. It was merged with the Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS) in 2010. The main role of ABARES is to provide "professionally independent data, research, analysis and advice that informs public and private decisions affecting Australian agriculture, fisheries and forestry”. ABARES maintains the AgSurf database which includes farm survey data on farm performance, production benchmarks, farm management, socioeconomic indicators relating to the grains, beef, sheep and dairy industries in Australia. ABARES has received funding from business and industry groups. ABARES' website notes that "Over half of ABARES' external revenue is derived from commercial consulting work." Provided by Wikipedia