The latest AgTech Revolution episode explores how being a land of droughts and flooding rains means using every drop of water productively is crucial to Australian farming.
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A multipart documentary produced by Lightbridge Productions, The AgTech Revolution explores the digital transformation taking place in Australian agriculture.
Lawson Grains is one of the biggest grains producers in Australia and its farm manager Lindsay George features in the episode.
"Our farming systems here are designed to retain moisture in the soil so we carry stubble over from the previous crops and that covers the ground and helps retain moisture," he said.
Lawson Grains is working with working with Novecom, a leading IoT solution provider, using a sensor and monitoring network to help manage their precious water resources including a dam level monitoring system.
"If you've got access to that data, then it enables you to make decisions around your pumping regimes, allowing you to understand when you are pumping and the management of levels in that dam," Novecom managing director Jeremy Pola said.
"The potential is that you can have an elaborately instrumented farm where you know the level in every one of your tanks. You can do all of that without having to have a large workforce.
"Right at the moment, there is a labor shortage and there's probably going to be a labor shortage for some time. To be able to supplement that labor with technology is both a cost saving and a time saving for the farmer. But it also just gives them the surety that they're not missing things that are going on."
Lucinda Corrigan, from Rennylea Angus - a NSW-based Angus genetics business, also features in the episode.
"If I look at the water monitoring type technologies, that's kind of a no brainer," she said.
"We've got a client in Central Australia who's put in about 90 of those systems because they run a lot of country on the edge of the Simpson Desert and it's very hard to get around all those water bores, (particularly) regularly in the summer when it's incredibly hot and obviously the cattle need water every day."
Food Agility CRC chief scientist Professor David Lamb is another interview subject.
"(Water is) a precious commodity," he said.
"It's needed to preserve our precious ecosystems and also to feed our rural and regional towns, so everyone wants a bit of it and it has to be used judiciously."
AgTech Revolution episodes are being released every fortnight and topics include smart machines.
- PAULA THOMPSON
