AN AGTECH business is giving farmers a pathway to value their non-traditional farm assets such as remnant vegetation, watercourses and areas of significant biodiversity.
Regen Digital offers a mapping product Digital Twin which can be used to incorporate environmentally valuable assets as well as more traditional infrastructure such as sheds and dams.
There has been huge interest in the product.
"We can hardly keep up with demand, with assessments tripling in the past two weeks alone," said Regen Digital co-director Andrew Ward.
Mr Ward said growing interest in environmental sustainability and awareness of the likelihood of increased obligations to meet net zero emission targets had been key drivers in farmer interest in the product.
He said with soaring rural property prices farmers were looking internally to assess the true value of their land.
"Previously the assessments have been made on what is arable land, but with Digital Twin we take into account other factors which we see as becoming more important as the industry evolves," Mr Ward said.
He said some farmers using the product were investigating the potential of diversifying their operation.
"People are taking a look at their assets and seeing whether they could deliver new revenue streams through carbon farming and protecting habitat."
Mr Ward also said the increased customer focus on stewardship through things such as net zero targets meant farmers needed to plan for regulatory change in the future.
"The most obvious example of this is the farmers in Europe that will be moving towards net zero in the near future, that is something that is going to be pushed down the supply chain and more customers are going to require it.
"Farmers can either cut their emissions or increase their carbon sequestration through various measures, whether that is increasing green belts or even improving ground cover over summer in cropping systems.
"It might be a big shift, where growers go from seeing just trees in a paddock to looking at the biodiversity value and even potentially economic value."
He said growers could also better map their farm management strategies that were also helping cut emissions.
"If you're in grazing, want ground cover, if you're cropping, you want to get to the point where there are more carbon sinks than emissions, there are some great opportunities for Australian farmers here, and the first step is mapping your property and knowing what you have."
Logistically, the Digital Twin system works with an open sourced agtech network that means it can be utilised across a range of operating systems.
"We put the farm operating survey stack together to enable farmers to have a safe, reliable data store, which they can integrate as they like via API (Application Programming Interface).
"The idea was to be agnostic, open source and open API so as many people as possible can use the product."
Mr Ward said Regen Digital was focusing on the opportunities net zero presented agriculture.
While much focus has been on cutting agriculture's emissions, which represent 13pc of Australia's total emissions, he said there was increasing positivity it could play a major role as a carbon sink.
Gregor Heard
Gregor Heard is ACM's national grains industry reporter, based in Horsham, Victoria. He has a wealth of knowledge surrounding the cropping sector through his 15 years in the role. Prior to that he was with the Fairfax network as a reporter with Stock & Land. Some of the major issues he has reported on during his time with the company include the deregulation of the export wheat market, the introduction of genetically modified crops and the fight to protect growers better from grain trader insolvencies. Still involved with the family farm he is passionate about rural Australia and its people and hopes to use his role to act as an advocate for those involved in the grain sector.
Gregor Heard is ACM's national grains industry reporter, based in Horsham, Victoria. He has a wealth of knowledge surrounding the cropping sector through his 15 years in the role. Prior to that he was with the Fairfax network as a reporter with Stock & Land. Some of the major issues he has reported on during his time with the company include the deregulation of the export wheat market, the introduction of genetically modified crops and the fight to protect growers better from grain trader insolvencies. Still involved with the family farm he is passionate about rural Australia and its people and hopes to use his role to act as an advocate for those involved in the grain sector.
