Agtech can help fast-track ag expertise

AGTECH is enabling farmers to condense decades of experience and knowledge into a shorter period of time.

West Australian citrus producer Sue Middleton.

IMAGINE if you could condense 50 years of farming experience and knowledge into just five years.

That’s what agtech is enabling farmers to do, according to West Australian citrus producer Sue Middleton.

Ms Middleton (pictured) was speaking at EvokeAg last week, discussing producer-led innovation with NSW sheep producer Mark Mortimer, of Centre Plus Merinos, and WA grains producer Brad Jones, of Bungalla Farms.

How agtech can help in saving labour, making farms more efficient and improving profit margins were some of the topics covered.

Agtech was giving producers data and information to become good at farming in a shorter period, Ms Middleton said.

“One of the most difficult things in farming is that by the time you finish farming, say you have 50 seasons you’re good at it. And that’s the problem in farming,” she said.

“The idea of getting 50 years of knowledge down to five years of knowledge, once you can do that you can really shake up the model of how we do agriculture and that’s the critical point, because no one’s got a lot of time to learn how to become a good farmer any more.”

Ms Middleton, a broadacre farmer, made the move into citrus about 20 years ago after reading dire climate projections for WA.

“We have built a packhouse with our partners in the citrus business, and we have this amazing technology that looks at every piece of orange 20 times and because we have that piece of technology its such a labour saving device,” she said.

“It’s such a step-up and has enabled us to get into China.”

She believes internet connectivity is the key for enabling farmers to implement technology on farm.

“We have to get to enterprise-grade broadband in farming areas. If you don’t do that, if we don’t have the backhaul to enable us to do the adoption, it is all just still going to be talk,,” she said.

“We don’t have a solution that has ever emerged out of any of the models so farmers are going to have to do it themselves.”