PDS Remote Water Management

Summary

For some time beef producers in the Roma area have been discussing how they could use telemetry to monitor a number of parameters and improve farm management practices, thereby potentially reducing costs, improving efficiencies and increasing productivity. With the ongoing reduction in availability of farm labour (particularly reliable, permanent staff) and the ongoing cost-price squeeze, managing the family farm is becoming more problematic. Telemetry systems are not new and have been used by other industries for decades. However the use of this technology for grazing and other rural industries has only seen serious development in the past six or seven years.
Prior to this, equipment developers tended to be small backyard enterprises producing custom-built systems with poor product reliability and questionable backup service. This resulted in negative attitudes towards telemetry systems from both producers and equipment suppliers. There are now a number of companies that are packaging a range of electronic monitoring devices to assist farmers to reduce costs and minimise labour and vehicle usage. However, producers generally had little technical knowledge about this equipment and its potential. This, and the concerns of reliability and after sales service, made producers reluctant to adopt this technology. This Producer Demonstration Site (PDS) project was set up to increase adoption of electronic monitoring, for one or more labour demanding management practices, through demonstrating its on-farm set-up and use in the Roma region. Benefits to be evaluated included savings in labour and vehicle-related expenses.