## 2 Overview  
The need to deliver spatial information for improved production and environmental management of individual farms within larger regional planning areas is well-recognised [12, 30]. The Extension Activity Support System (EASY) project was established to undertake the foundational work necessary to establish a national (Australian) system for achieving this in response to major user needs. The creation of the EASY project in April 2009 was driven by the success and learnings of a previously created tool known as eFarmer. The Victorian State Government, working closely with a number of Catchment Management Authorities (CMAs), and with the geospatial firm Spatial Vision had developed and trialled a web-based application (eFarmer) that supported the capture, viewing and sharing of natural resource management information across farms, landscapes and catchments [12]. eFarmer was designed to support planning for farms and catchments such that farmers could implement activities on their properties that may contribute to the achievement of catchment-wide environmental outcomes. Hence eFarmer had the capability to support the management of individual farms as well as being able to provide information required for developing public policy across larger areas. The desire to deliver farm and landscape spatial information to support improved management, termed herein \"farm extension activities\", is not unique to the state of Victoria and the EASY project partners. Indeed, a necessity for creating a national vision for EASY was to identify existing data repositories and mapping and farm/landscape management software employed across Australia and assess their capabilities to optimise conceptual design and not duplicate existing capability. Similarly, the technological capability had to be harmonised with the generic needs of farmers and policy-makersin order to ensure that EASY would provide a core structure, functionality, and data repository to meet multiple and unanticipated applications across the agricultural sector. It was hypothesised that softwares designed to support mapping applications and spatial data display (e.g., ArclInfo(tm) and GoogleEarth(tm)) would have strengths in data visualisation, mapping capability and database management but not have embedded strengths for farm and landscape management. By comparison, softwares that do have strong support for specific farm and landscape management activities (e.g., ifarm(tm), Back Paddock(tm)) are often farm-specific and lack the capacity to meet the needs of a wide range of users. Finally, data repositories (for example, the Western Australian Government--Shared Land Information Portal--[[https://www2.landgate.wa.gov.au/](https://www2.landgate.wa.gov.au/)]([https://www2.landgate.wa.gov.au/](https://www2.landgate.wa.gov.au/))) provide access to critical data, but do not provide the capability to link datasets in ways that may improve their value for farm and landscape management. The EASY prototype was developed in response to a perceived absence of tools that provide a central outlet for disparate scientific results, and that adequately support agricultural consultants, extension staff and catchment managers in discovering and accessing the wide variety of information required to enable comprehensive extension service delivery and information wholesaling. Nor do any softwares currently available in Australia have the requisite underpinnings of a nationally applicable system. Hence it was concluded that in Australia there is a clear need to create a system based on the needs of landowners, rural service providers, and regional managers. There is also a need to have a system that is compatible (interoperable) with existing software that is already partially meeting the needs of the targeted user community. And to facilitate enhanced uptake, the system designed needs to be expandable for information content, data sets, and technical functionality.