UNLOCKING the value of agriculture technology could lie in grower-owned data co-operatives, according to Nuffield scholar and Kendenup farmer Andrew Slade.
Mr Slade presented an informative discussion on ag tech to about 40 growers at last week's Stirlings to Coast Farmers Group Smart Farm Technology workshop.
Recently, through his Nuffield Scholarship, Mr Slade travelled the globe to investigate digital agriculture and how different sources of farm data could be integrated into common management platforms to develop better decision support tools and facilitate the uptake of new ag tech.
Mr Slade works in a family farming operation and is the cropping and feedlot manager in a 5500 hectare broadacre cropping and mixed livestock enterprise.
He is also the stud principal of their maternal composite sheep stud.
"A big focus on our farm is identifying efficiencies and investing in equipment and infrastructure to generate these efficiencies on farm," Mr Slade said.
"This has really driven our livestock enterprises but when you look at where you can go beyond that there is only so far you can go to lift productivity.
"The question is where is the next real gain in productivity going to come from?
"This question gave me the motivation to go out and apply for a Nuffield Scholarship with the focus on digital agriculture and looking what is in it for Australian farming systems moving down that digital pathway.
"I was keen to identify what the need is and why do we need to focus on this technology, what is the level of interest around the globe and what is the level of government interest in this sector in other regions.
"It was also about where the limitations lie, why aren't we seeing the uptake when there is so much hype around ag tech and why it isn't being adopted on farm."
Mr Slade said through his travels, it was clear that Australian farmers are among the most productive in the world.
"Our innovation and efficiencies are right up there, but that is only going to take us so far," he said.
"There are other regions where adoption and implementation of technology is rapidly catching us.
"The Ukraine, for example, has scale that is on another level to what we see here - they have 500,000ha farms under management there.
"They are dealing with issues such as political instability and poor infrastructure, but if they get these things sorted out, then we will really need to push the productivity envelope to maintain our competitiveness globally."
Mr Slade said farmers would also need to deal with consumer perception at some point.
"Via social media we see a lot of commentary around things such as animal production, concerns around GMO and agriculture has the opportunity to make food production more transparent and provide marketing opportunities and utilise technology to prove best practice and to sell that story better," he said.
Mr Slade said productivity growth in Australian agriculture had stagnated in the past 10 years.
"According to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences since 2000 there has been a one per cent growth in productivity," he said.
"We are targeting our inputs better, but we are not really seeing an increase in output.
"If you compare this to other industries, the ones gaining rapid productivity are also the most digitised industries and agriculture is one of the least digitised industries.
"There is a growing investment around the world into agrifood technology and it has risen from $2 billion in 2012 to $16.9b in 2018.
"And if you look at where the investment is coming from, the US makes up the most with $8b spent in 2018 at a level of $24 per capita, while Australia spends $1.20 per capita."
Mr Slade said the value of ag technology would come from the accumulation of data.
"Collecting data and generating real business insight could be where the opportunities lie," he said.
"What we are seeing in ag tech at the moment is the rise of platforms and management programs and that was explained to me as a 'fad', which is not going to generate the real productivity gains we need.
"Data is the main trend pushing productivity and how that data is used.
"In the US, there is a growing trend towards consolidation, companies such as Bayer and so on are aligning themselves with farm management programs and buying out farm management programs predominantly for their data.
"They aim to then use that data to develop products to provide better options for growers."
Mr Slade said the ag tech sector hadn't done a good job of showing the value of data involved.
"The common complaint or concern is that we are not really seeing the big lifts in productivity you might expect," he said.
"Technology isn't really making farmers more profitable, but it is making farming easier.
"There is a lot of ag tech out there and much of it delivers a marginal return on investment and the amount that is expected to be implemented and maintained and run can chew up a lot of time.
"One farm I visited in the US had one employee that was totally dedicated to managing data and the flows between the different programs they were running.""
Mr Slade said at the moment the value of data collected wasn't being realised.
"What farmers need is real decision support tools to inform decision making based on the data collected," he said.
"In terms of the ag tech sector, there are concerns that nine out of 10 start ups fail to reach commercialisation and fundamentally farmer uptake is slow.
"A lot of the solutions put out there are solutions looking for a problem and they are not really identifying what farmers' real needs are.
"The on-the-ground back up and support available or provided is also a big consideration for purchasing decisions."
Mr Slade said another issue with ag tech at the moment was trust.
"There is an underlying mistrust from farmers on how data is used and who is going to have it and who is going to use it," he said.
"There is a belief that farmers should be paid for data, but that data is worthless unless someone or something creates value from it and at the moment that is not really happening."
Mr Slade said the number of grower-owned data co-operatives cropping up in Europe and the US had risen.
"Farmers are aggregating that data between them and generating value out of that," he said.
"The potential of this comes in the form of decision support and using that data to enable better decision making.
"Another value of this aggregated data comes through marketing opportunities - linking direct to and value adding what you are producing to the consumer.
"There is a belief out there that consumers are getting close to the point where they want information about produce and are willing to pay for it.
"Digital ag has the potential to leverage what we do on farm and prove legitimate practices and generate a better return from that, but that does require a lot of transparency and trust if you want to go down that road."
Mr Slade offered some broad recommendations to farmers looking to invest in ag tech.
"Identify what your needs are, there is no point in investing for the sake of investing," he said.
"Look for integrations that reduce the pain you have with the flow of data between systems.
"And from a suppliers perspective, they need to work better with producers to produce tools we actually need that are fit for a purpose."
