Australia’s first fully-automated farm to be built in Wagga Wagga
The ‘hands-free’ farm is a collaboration between Charles Sturt University and Food Agility to demonstrate the future of farmingCharles Sturt University’s Wagga Wagga campus is set to host what the university claims to be Australia’s first fully-automated commercial farm as part of a new high-tech collaboration between the University and Food Agility Co-operative Research Centre.
The Global Digital Farm (GDF) will be built to demonstrate the future of farming through robotics and artificial intelligence and by creating new sustainability and carbon models to drive improvements in farming practice.
It will be located at Charles Sturt University’s AgriSciences Research and Business Park (AgriPark) at its Wagga Wagga campus, with the requisite data, telecommunication and other digital infrastructure to be developed and built over the next three years.
Charles Sturt University Professor of Food Sustainability, Niall Blair, said the GDF will be a commercial operation, educational facility and community outreach facility rolled into one.
“This ambitious and unique project will arm Australia’s primary industries workforce with knowledge and technology in crucial fields like data analytics, geospatial mapping, remote sensing, machine learning and cybersecurity,” Professor Blair said.
“The Global Digital Farm will utilise Charles Sturt University’s world-class research and development capability in the agriculture space to help ensure the next generation of Australia’s farmers are at the forefront of innovation.
“Charles Sturt University is delighted to announce and enter into this partnership with Food Agility.”
Food Agility CEO, Richard Norton, said the reality of ‘hands-free’ farming is closer than many realised and would be accelerated by the establishment of the GDF.
“Full automation is not a distant concept, there are already mines in the Pilbara operated entirely through automation,” he said.
“It won’t be too many years before technology will take farmers out of the field and immerse them in the world of robotics, automation and artificial intelligence.
“Food Agility, Charles Sturt University and the Riverina will be at the forefront of that transformation in Australia courtesy of the Global Digital Farm.”
Some features of the GDF include:
- Fully autonomous machinery – robotic tractors, harvesters, survey equipment and drones
- Artificial intelligence informing management decisions around sowing, dressing and harvesting
- A state-of-the-art cyber-secure environment establishing best practice management of the emerging cybersecurity risks in food production
- New sensor technologies measuring the interactions between plants, soils and animals
- Evidence-based sustainability practices and models
- Carbon management and measurement models
The project will be located on the AgriPark’s 1900-hectare farm, which is operated as a commercial enterprise and incorporates a range of broadacre crops (wheat, canola, barley), as well as a vineyard, cattle and sheep.
The GDF will be spearheaded by Food Agility Chief Scientist, Professor David Lamb, an early pioneer and leading Australian expert in precision and digital agriculture.
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