Six information technology companies have won the opportunity to compete for as much as $250 million in task orders available through the Agriculture Department’s Farm Applications Services and Technology program.

The prime contract winners of the five-year, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract for IT and telecommunications support are Accenture Ltd., Ace Info Solutions Inc., Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Electronic Consulting Services Inc., Electronic Data Systems Corp., and MilVets Systems Technology Inc., the department said May 8.

Ace Info and Electronic Consulting Services are small businesses, and MilVets is a service disabled, veteran-owned, small disadvantaged business.

The contractors will perform a wide range of IT development and support services for the Farm Service Agency, which has large offices in Kansas City, Mo.; St. Louis, and Washington.

Specific support requirements covered under the contract include software engineering, telecom support, applications development, data warehousing and enterprise architecture initiatives, according to contract documents.

Other services and support involve geographic information systems, remote sensing and business application engineering.