ELECTRONIC business offers many opportunities for agriculture and the food chain, and MAFF will play a leading role in helping it seize them, says Agriculture Minister Nick Brown.

While visiting the offices in Leicester of FOL Networks, an e-commerce and information technology firm, the minister said: "MAFF has already started down the e-business road. We are setting up the new Common Agricultural Policy Payments Agency (CAPPA), which will process all CAP claims over the internet.

"There are other developments, such as the CTS Online service, for cattle owners to apply for cattle passports on line, which is coming on stream next month, and the CLICK project, which is already helping farmers and rural communities in Herefordshire to access the Internet.

"The power of new information technologies is revolutionising the way we do business. Just as in the private sector, e-business will transform both the way Government works and the services it provides to the public."

As part of the Action Plan for Farming announced last March, MAFF commissioned a report on the availability and use of computers by farmers and the developments in e-business technology and the potential role for ICT in agriculture.

It was found that half to two-thirds of farmers already have PCs and, of these, two-thirds already have internet access.

Of computer owners, 20pc are keen to use electronic forms for IACS and the June Census etc, 40pc are possibly interested.

Computer ownership is not uniformly spread either by farm type, size or geography. The lowest ownership is found in the livestock sector.

Updated: 10:28 Thursday, January 25, 2001