UNIVERSITY students from the United States have visited a freshwater crayfish business in Chidlow as part of an Australian study trip.
The group of 23 students from the University of St Thomas in Minnesota are spending a month touring the country.
They visited Southern Yabbies and Marron last week.
Associate Professor Rick Kunkel said Chidlow’s Southern Yabbies and Marron was a great example of how a small business could use the power of e-commerce to market Australian products to customers worldwide.
“Before the Internet it would have been hard to imagine how wheat farmers in country WA could raise a local product to be marketed globally,” he said.
“With help from the Internet, I understand that about 70 per cent of yabbies are now exported.”
It was Prof Kunkel’s seventh visit to WA and he was looking forward to renewing his acquaintance with yabbies after first catching some of the mouth-watering crustaceans on a visit to a wheat and sheep farm near Hyden in 1993.
“We went to see the dams and help to bait the traps and catch and sort the yabbies before enjoying them at a barbecue,” Prof Kunkel said.
The university e-commerce law course covers topics such as privacy, electronic contracting, online defamation, copyright, trade secrets and other legal issues.
“Our course focuses on how communications technologies can help Australian businesses overcome the tyranny of distance,” Prof Kunkel said.
“We are visiting large and small businesses in Australia to learn how they are using technology to compete globally.
“We have just visited Sydney and met with the Australian Law Reform Commission and Austrade.”