Digital farm projects
Overview
MLA’s digital farms contribute to initiatives around trialling and demonstrating on-farm connectivity and digital agriculture technologies. It involves a combination of programs and activities including enabling credentials through the CN30 program and beef sustainability initiatives and increasing the productivity of red meat businesses. Together, digital farms address barriers to the adoption of digital technologies and data analytics and increase the potential for wide-scale impact beyond the farmgate.
The smart farms MLA has invested in have implemented technologies focused on a range of different use cases. Multiple technology solutions were installed to address each application to allow the solutions to be compared and broadly test the technology readiness across the industry.
Core activities
The following use cases were investigated in the Digital Farms program. The use cases and which solution providers investigated each, are summarised in the table below:
- water management
- pasture and soil management
- data integration
- livestock tags
- fuel management
- infrastructure management
- smart weather stations.
Benefits to industry
The Australian and global media provides evidence of a raft of digital livestock solutions that are apparently ready for producers to adopt and will make their business more efficient. Yet on the other hand producers Australia-wide are either having difficulty in accessing these solutions, and or understanding the value proposition. Similarly, they are often unable to find solution suppliers that can provide a simple to understand whole of farm digital solution.
The Digital Farm program has demonstrated the benefit to industry of MLA orchestrating such an opportunity for global solution providers and producers to better understand what is deployable today to positively impact businesses in the red meat industry.
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V.DIG.2022 - Romani Digital Farm |
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Project Title |
Objective |
Use Cases Investigated |
Date published |
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Romani Pastoral Digital Livestock 4.0 Management, Installation and Adoption support |
The appointment of an experienced consultant with hands-on professional farm management business experience to co-develop and co-deliver Romani Pastoral Company Digital Livestock 4.0 Management, Installation and Adoption support for 2019-2022. |
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In progress |
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Adoption of Wildeye ag-technology at Romani Pastoral Co.’s Redbank Station (as part of the MLA Digital Livestock 4.0 Pilot) |
To deploy ag technology products at Redbank and have these products used and assessed by the operators. |
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28 May 2021 |
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MLA – Romani Pastoral Co Digital Livestock 4.0 2019/2020 Pilot |
The project objectives were to install a network that would support various use cases as set out by Romani Pastoral company and MLA requirements. |
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14 June 2021 |
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Romani Pastoral Company – MLA Digital Livestock 4.0 2019/2020 |
There is a need for the industry to evaluate under practical conditions a range of technologies being offered by the key solution providers. |
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27 May 2021 |
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To assess the value of currently available sensor technology for the livestock sector to assist producers in decision making, and to potentially inform future R&D investment where gaps are identified.
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26 February 2021
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To assess the value of currently available sensor technology for the livestock sector to assist producers in decision making, and to potentially inform future R&D investment where gaps are identified.
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26 February 2021 |
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Smart Paddock deployment of sheep and cattle tracking tags at Romani Pastoral |
To demonstrate the digital solution on a real working farm, gain valuable feedback from both Romani staff and external visiting producers, validate collar compatibility with third party LoRaWAN networks, specifically the NNNCo network, and to begin discussions with other related platforms for data sharing and further integration. |
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28 April 2020 |
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The project was designed to monitor and manage fuel usage and levels across the fleet of Romani Pastoral Company including their business and personal assets. |
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2 November 2021 |
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Regrow - MLA’s Digital Livestock 4.0 Pilot at Romani Pastoral Co |
To track the pasture performance across paddocks to optimise the allocation of herds and to use FluroSense Nitrogen recommendations to optimise Nitrogen application and create nutrient variable rate (VR) application maps.
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30 May 2021 |
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Farmo sensors trial to improve efficiency, safety and quality at Romani Pastoral Co |
The objective was to demonstrate the capacity of digital technology on a working farm and show how the property owner can benefit from accessing and analysing data collected remotely. |
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2 Mar 2021 |
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Water monitoring in the digital age: Reducing stress and improving the efficiency of the “Water Run”. |
Reducing staff stress and travel time need for the water run. |
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8 June 2021 |
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MLA Digital Farm: ICT International sensors providing better outcomes in environmental monitoring |
The Romani Pastoral Company project will demonstrate technology that was not available previously, or willing to be provided at the time of a potential Carwoola Pastoral Company Phase 2 project. |
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31 May 2021 |
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Digital Livestock 4.0 2019/2020 Pilot Farmbot Romani Digital Farm Water Sensing Deployment Trial |
To provide digital solutions under MLA’s Digital Livestock 4.0 2019/2020 pilot to Romani Pastoral Company, specifically to provide water tank and trough monitoring using satellite connectivity. |
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10 May 2021 |
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AxisTech Device Deployment - Windy Station |
To demonstrate hardware devices available in the market as requested by producers, industry groups, solution providers, researchers and universities. |
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1 March 2021 |
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Cibo Labs – Satellite Assisted Forage Budgeting |
The overarching objectives of the demonstrator were to provide Romani Pastoral Company (RPC) and other participating solution providers with a ‘near real-time’ operational satellite image-based pasture monitoring service for the entire property aggregation with a specific focus on providing weekly estimates of pasture biomass to support forage budgeting and stocking decisions. |
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30 June 2021 |
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V.DIG.0017 – Carwoola Digital Ag 4.0
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Project title |
Objective |
Uses cases investigated |
Date published |
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Carwoola Digital Pilot - Post 12-month device installation review - from the Hype to the Happening |
The appointment of an experienced consultant with hands-on professional farm management business experience to: · drive MLA’s precision/digital agriculture program · co-develop and co-deliver MLA’s pending graduate program · provide a long history of successful Australian farm management knowledge into other MLA program areas and pending strategy developments. |
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12 February 2020 |
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Immersive Reality IoT Device Integration Pilot |
The main aims of the project were to; integrate the existing InDepth™ product with IoT devices from Carwoola; import map data for Carwoola; and provide MLA staff with a demonstration of the mixed reality capability. |
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1 July 2021 |
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Carwoola data leverage pilot for research and extension activities |
The objective of this pilot project was to better understand the opportunities, once converged data is integrated to a single site; and the future capacity to utilise data convergence platforms like Pairtree, for industry research extension. |
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15 September 2021 |
