How to improve on-farm efficiencies: Crystal Brook farmer Andrew Sargent tells
CEREAL producer Andrew Sargent has his eye on farming’s big picture, writes JOHANNA LEGGATT.
FIFTH-generation farmer Andrew Sargent has always loved being on a farm, but he needed to work in an office to appreciate just how much he was suited to cropping.
“After high school, I started an engineering degree and decided I didn’t want to be in an office or work in an office, and so I got out of that field,” Andrew said.
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“Then I spun spanners for a bit as a mechanic and installed auto-steer systems before coming back to the farm in 2005.”
Andrew, 33, runs a cereal cropping enterprise at Crystal Brook, 200km north of Adelaide, growing wheat, barley, lentils, canola and oaten hay across 1700ha of owned and 300ha of leased land.
He is now happily ensconced in the old farmhouse that belonged to his grandparents, but has no regrets about his brief hiatus from the farm.
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“I think it is good I left for a few years because you have no regrets and you’re not wondering what another life would be like,” he said.
“I know what it’s like to work for someone else, and I’ve seen the flash renovations people have been able to do when you’re making someone else rich.
“Plus, I like the variety: you get to work outside, have all the cool toys and you get to be your own business manager.”
Not that the last role is easy. Andrew runs a tight ship, but he’s not immune to an average season.
Since the start of the year, the farm has received 152mm, which is well under usual levels.
“We would normally have 300mm for the growing season alone, which runs from April to October,” he said.
“Our annual rainfall is 400mm and we are almost at the end of the year and not even at half that.
“It’s not great, but it’s a bit hard to complain when you see some other guys (in NSW) struggling.”
ANDREW SARGENT
CRYSTAL BROOK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA
RUNS a cereal cropping enterprise across 2000ha
GROWS mainly wheat, barley, canola, lentils and oaten hay
WHEAT yields 3.9 tonnes/ha and barley 3.8 tonnes/ha
WINNER of a 2019 Nuffield Scholarship investigating how the Internet of Things can improve on-farm efficiency.
GRAIN BRAIN
THE harvest currently underway may be a bit patchy, Andrew noted, with the lentil crops struggling with frost and some of the barley head battling to emerge from the leaf.
“Although some of the barley is also looking pretty good, and the prices are high for wheat and barley so we may not do too badly,” he said.
Andrew runs his farm on a three-year rotation, cycling between wheat, barley and a break-crop — usually canola or lentils.
Lentils have proved to be a volatile crop, with prices fluctuating depending on the export markets. At the moment they’re roughly sitting at $450 a tonne.
“Lentils, a couple of years ago, were $1500 a tonne, and instead of it being a break-crop it became the cash crop because India’s droughts drove up the price,” Andrew said.
“Now there is a huge tariff on lentils and chickpeas into India, so a lot of the lentils may be sold to feedlots around the area.”
One thing is for certain: very little will be wasted. Andrew places a huge emphasis on on-farm efficiency, and was awarded a 2019 Nuffield Scholarship to investigate the impact of the Internet of Things on agriculture. The IoT is a term used to describe sophisticated digital devices gathering data and sharing it with other devices to improve farm efficiency.
“I’ve always had an interest in the Internet of Things, and I thought there was an opportunity to use more of that in agriculture,” Andrew said.
“I like to think we are pretty forward-thinking and innovative in agriculture so I thought it would be good to look at what we could try and do a bit differently.
“At the moment guys are using on-farm sensor stuff, like weather stations and soil moisture probes, but what else is out there?”
DOLLAR DAZZLER
IT’S early days for Andrew’s scholarship research, but he has a keen sense of where the most value lies for various farming sectors.
“Most cropping guys are fairly efficient and maybe that is because we have had the technology made available to us for a while now,” Andrew said.
“But there are other sectors, like livestock, where gains could easily be felt.
“You’ve got livestock guys employing people full-time to go around and check stock waters.
“So there is opportunity there to automate that and save producers a whole labour unit.”
When it comes to broadacre cropping, Andrew argued that most of the benefits would be felt around the capture and aggregation of big data.
“If we can get more information into our modelling, then our decisions will be that much better,” he said.
“For example, I can get an inch of rain (25mm) through one end of the paddock and not the other end of it, but that extra inch can make a big difference in terms of decisions made.
“But if you don’t know about the rain, it’s hard to take advantage of it.”
But it’s not just about capturing reams and reams of data, according to Andrew: The quality of that data is what matters most.
“When trying to do any modelling, if one input is wrong, like your water holding capacity, then the prediction about your yield, for example, is going to be wrong,” he said.
“Accurate data input is crucial.”
But the potential of IoT is enormous, not just in helping growers and producers run a smart operation in the present, but to insulate them from periods of extreme weather in the future.
“If you’re running a lean business, tailored to what needs to happen and nothing more, then you’re going to be more able to withstand these dry periods,” Andrew said.
“It‘s also going to make you better able to capitalise on a wet year and put a bit away.
“Nothing is lost.”
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