Connectivity project helping to improve farm blackspots

Three Birchip grain growers are in a pilot connectivity project to reduce blackspots on farms, which can cost grain growers up to $20,000 a year.

A REGIONAL connectivity project is looking to improve on-farm signal blackspots, which are estimated to cost grain growers up to $20,000 each year.

The pilot project, made possible by a grant from the William Buckland Foundation, is being run by Birchip Cropping Group in partnership with Australian telecommunications company Zetifi and will work with three local Birchip grain growers to boost their on-farm Wi-Fi networks.

Each of the three growers has been given a Zetifi rover fitted to their vehicle which acts to boost the mobile signal and provide a wi-fi hotspot around the vehicle.

“The boosters also record the strength of the signal the area is getting and that’s helping us to build a detailed map of the black spots around Birchip,” BCG innovations leader Phillip Guthrie said.

“We’re also working to install some fixed infrastructure on the properties as well.”

Mr Guthrie said lack of connectivity in regional areas has a large impact on farmers business profitability.

“We identified the cost of poor mobile and internet connectivity at five dollars per hectare, which, for our average farmers, works out to be about $20,000 per year — that’s a fairly significant cost.”

In its early stages the project aims to compare the range of connectivity options to amplify the connections of the farms to the national telecommunications network, including 3G, 4G, the National Broadband Network, Fixed Wireless and Sky Muster satellite service.

“Installing more mobile towers is a very expensive way to (boost connectivity) so we are looking at lower cost ways that would enable farmers to invest in it themselves,” Mr Guthrie said. “We want to trial these technologies to see what results we get and what works best for the farmers.”

Mr Guthrie said the opportunity costs of operating offline were also significant as farmers compete in an increasingly data and technology driven industry. Estimates from the Australian Farm Institute in 2018 reported a gain of about $90 per hectare through agricultural tech and the digitis­ation of the grain sector.

“All these gains are data reliant and if you cannot collect and move it around and off your farm it’s very difficult for farmers to be able to take part in the ag tech revolution,” Mr Guthrie said.

VFF Grains Group president Ashley Fraser said his farm near Rutherglen has excellent mobile and NBN access which “absolutely changed the way (they) do things”.

Mr Fraser said internet and phone connectivity was a vital part to his business that all growers should have the ability to access. “There’s so much great technology out there. We have our city counterparts saying you’ve got all this stuff at your fingertips but the reality is the technology is there but without the connectivity you can’t access any of it.”

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