THE helm of the Society of Precision Agriculture Australia (SPAA) is staying in Western Australia after Philip Honey took over from Frank D'Emden as president of the group last week.
Mr Honey is well-known for his work as the smart farms co-ordinator with Stirlings to Coast Farmers and owns his own consultancy business, Environmental and Cropping Technologies Australia, in Albany.
He has been a member of SPAA since 2009, joined the committee about five years ago and was appointed vice-president two and a half years ago.
Mr Honey said his time on the committee was great for his personal development and opened his eyes up to what was available.
"All of these things are a natural progression and I knew that when I said yes to being vice-president that I would likely end up as president, via a voting process, of course, one day," Mr Honey said.
SPAA is effectively an Australia-wide grower group which is entirely independent and has excellent network connections across universities, private researchers and machinery dealers.
At any time, the group has between 10 to 15 committee members across the country covering a wide range of industries including sugar, horticulture, viticulture and grains.
Mr Honey said he was looking forward to a return to hosting in-person events, increasing engagement with SPAA members and providing practical on-ground support to as many farmers as possible.
"Over the past couple of years COVID has restricted what we've been able to do, so I'm looking forward to putting more events on, meeting people across regional Australia and creating networks," he said.
"We've got farmers who are just starting out in precision ag and others who are well-seasoned and have been doing it for 10 to 15 years, so sharing knowledge and experience between them is a real focus area for me."
Of note lately, SPAA teamed up with Grain Producers Australia and the Tractor and Machinery Association of Australia to develop the code of practice for Agricultural Mobile Field Machinery with Autonomous Functions in Australia.
"There are a lot of things we can do which are very cutting edge and at the end of the day we want to derive great value for our members who want to be sustainable, build resilience and be environmentally friendly," Mr Honey said.
