Digital ag’s billion-dollar boost

Producers across the agricultural sector are set to benefit from an estimated increase in production value of 25 per cent, but only if digital technology is embraced and barriers to its implementation are broken down, according to Australia’s leading precision agriculture advocacy group.

The Accelerating Precision Agriculture to Decision Agriculture (P2D) Project team was established a year ago to focus on opportunities and challenges of precision agriculture in Australia and has just completed its first industry-wide economic analysis.

The team found while there are speed bumps in the transition process from analogue to digital, it's not all bad news.

“While the size and type of potential benefits vary between industries, if we work together as one agricultural sector, profit gains will be delivered more quickly and evenly in every market,” says project researcher Richard Heath, from the Australian Farm Institute.

“Our economic analysis, supported by international value proposition case studies and domestic best-practice benchmarking, gives us a window into the right formula for delivering maximum returns, specific to each industry.

“But to capture the maximum potential, and secure our position as a world leader in agricultural production, we are going to need to act quickly and cooperatively to coordinate a national approach.”

The P2D project, led by the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC), delivered 13 key recommendations designed to catapult Australian agriculture into the digital age.

Heath says the current barriers to digital transition include poor connectivity, a lack of confidence in returns from investment in digital agriculture, poor knowledge and support to assess options, and trust and legal issues around data ownership.

He says the P2D recommendations call for a “big picture fix”, including a new Digital Agriculture Taskforce for Australia and collaborative efforts to secure data speeds and volumes and open access to game-changing data sets.

“If we get this right, agriculture in the future will be digitally enhanced throughout the value chain from producer to consumer, through increased automation, smarter use of inputs, accelerated genetic gains and improved market access and biosecurity,” Heath says.

“The collection of data from machines and sensors is increasing rapidly in Australia and we have been a leading player in the development of precision agriculture tools.

“But our AgTech market to provide tools for analysing data is in its infancy, compared to countries like Israel and the United States. A lack of producer control, on-farm connectivity and the under-utilisation of data has put us at a global disadvantage”.

The P2D Project team will release the results of its economic analysis and wider research at industry stakeholder and agribusiness forums in Canberra and Sydney on November 27 and 28 respectively.