DPIRD apologises to farmers after website outage

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development has apologised to farmers after its website crashed for nearly two days.

Farmers logging onto the DPIRD site last weekend were left scratching their heads when faced with an error message encouraging them to “please try again later”.

A DPIRD spokesman said the site — agric.wa.gov.au — stopped working on Saturday evening and was fixed on Monday morning.

“DPIRD’s agric.wa.gov.au website was interrupted by an underlying technical issue from Saturday evening through to Monday morning,” she said.

“As soon as this error was reported, the department moved quickly to rectify the issue within its normal business hours of operation and the service resumed a short time later.”

“DPIRD apologises any inconvenience caused.”

The website includes different sections for climate, land and water, crops, livestock and animals, pests, weeds and diseases, agribusiness, food and trade, biosecurity and quarantine, and includes various support tools for farmers.