About the Producer Technology Uptake Program

Background

The AgriFutures Australia Producer Technology Uptake Program  (PTUP) commenced in 2021 to support producer groups to increase adoption of technology and innovation solutions on-farm. Digital technologies are critical to increased productivity through optimising input use, more timely decision making, labour savings and improved market access.

PTUP aims to establish a national network of farmers, fishers and foresters that champion and accelerate innovation and practice change on-farm. The program works with well-connected producer groups who know and understand their local producers’ needs, including knowledge gaps, skills and experience that prevent them from implementing agtech innovation. In 2022, the program’s eligibility was expanded to include agricultural high schools with projects focused on building student capacity to learn, understand and incorporate technology and innovation on-farm.

The national initiative rolls out program activities over a 12-month period to drive peer-to-peer learning and is delivered across three tranches: farm-tech capacity building planning workshops, tech adoption grants and access to an online Community of Practice (CoP). In the first three rounds of the Program, successful producer groups and agricultural high schools were awarded a grant of up to $20,000 to deliver their technology uptake program. In December 2022, Northern Australian producer groups could apply for up to $30,000 through the Northern Western Australia and Northern Territory Drought Hub to deliver a bespoke project.

In January 2023 producer groups that had completed their PTUP projects were able to apply for a progression grant of up to $100,000 to expand or pivot project activities to continue to support the increase adoption of technology and innovation solutions on-farm. A co-contribution of 20 percent was required from participating producers, producer groups, and supporting suppliers for the progression grants.

Program wins

• More than 60 applications were received for the pilot round. 20 producer groups were supported from around Australia.
• To date, PTUP has engaged 59 producer groups and 11 agricultural high schools, directly impacting approximately 2,700 nationally, across many industries and enterprise sizes. The program has a footprint in all states and territories.
• While some projects have been impacted by Covid-19, generally most projects have kicked off and we have already received strong anecdotal feedback on the positive impact the program is delivering through increased technology uptake. A comprehensive monitoring and evaluation approach is in place to track and report on program impact, as well as share success stories across groups.

Impact example: Woorak Community and Land Management Group, Victoria

• For the past two decades, producers in the Woorak region have struggled to understand and manage large variations in seasonal conditions, including extended dry times and unseasonal storm events depositing large amounts of moisture.
• The group applied to the Producer Technology Uptake Program, under a co-contribution model, to install soil moisture probes and weather stations over a 90km2 zone.
• Converting the percentage of moisture in a soil profile to match the classified soil types in the region to determine water availability to crop. With this knowledge, they are incorporating soil moisture into water use efficiency calculations, so farmers are aware of yield potentials and apply crop inputs that close the yield gap. They are also developing a spatial map to show real time fire danger ratings across their sites.
• Initial funding that kick started the project involved 9 growers and one agribusiness making financial contributions setting up 5 weather stations and 9 soil moisture probes. This network then grew with other members adding additional sites which now includes 16 financial contributors expanding the network to 17 weather stations and 25 soil moisture probes. The weather stations themselves have provided fantastic localised information for paddock operations such as spraying, and hay covering accurate delta T, wind speed and direction, humidity and dew point. Other useful information has included comparison graphing of frost risk across the range of sites at various elevations.

2021 Producer Technology Uptake Program: Producer group grant recipients

Upper North Farming Systems
Incorporating digital farming for improved productivity in the Upper North of South Australia

Monaro Farming Systems
Practical technology uptake on The Monaro – hosting a regional agricultural technology symposium

Riverine Plains Inc
Innovation uptake program

Griffith and District Citrus Growers Association
Skills and knowledge development of advanced telemetry enabled digital irrigation monitoring technologies

Stirlings to Coast Farmers Inc
Improving farm water use efficiency – digital technology implementation and training to improve overall on-farm productivity and improve farm water-use efficiencies

Fruit Growers Victoria
Fruit Tech 2021

Macquarie Cotton Growers Association
Digitally enabled cotton farms – back to basics

Australian Native Food Industry Limited
Building technology adoption capability in the native ag and food sector

South Australian Growers Ltd
Intensive horticulture advanced technology outreach and adoption program

Food and Agribusiness Network Limited
FAN agtech farm trail

Woorak farming community group
Soil moisture sensor network in the medium/low rainfall environment in the Northern Wimmera

Western Australian Pork Producers Association (Inc)
Western Australian Pork Producers Association Agtech Up-take Project

Southern Growers Incorporated
Encouraging adoption of cost efficient, accurate moisture monitoring in the irrigated farming system

West Midlands Group
Clarifying the value proposition for farmers when considering variable rate (VR) fertiliser application to improve uptake of variable rate technology

Sunraysia Citrus Growers
Skills and knowledge development of advanced digital irrigation telemetry monitoring technologies

Australian Tea Tree Industry Association Members
Evaluating a remote sensing ‘Time Series’ approach for monitoring seasonal variability in tree health and yield forecasting in tea tree

Victorian Strawberry Growers Association Inc
Agtech workshops and adoption strategy

Macintyre Ag Alliance
Getting connected with LoRaWAN

Viticulture Society of the Canberra District Incorporated Association
Digital viticulture technology for the Canberra Wine District

Buckleboo Farm Improvement Group Incorporated
Enabling farmers to understand and utilise useful agtech developments

2022 Producer Technology Uptake Program: Producer group grant recipients

Apple and Pear Australia Limited
Turning images into action: precision orcharding and variability mapping to improve returns in tree fruit orchards

Facey Group INC
Facilitating the adoption of a hyperlocal weather station and soil moisture probe network to improve on-farm decision making

WA Regenerative Livestock Producers Inc
Virtual Fencing Trial

South Australian Agricultural Shows Next Generation Group
‘Enabling the Next Gen’

Society of Precision Agriculture Australia
Precision Agriculture in Practice

Bowen Gumlu Growers Association
BGGA Agtech Opportunities Study

AgPro Management
Carbon accounting tools. Choosing a clear pathway to creating a carbon baseline

Birchip Cropping Group
Shared solutions; Developing farmer driven on-farm trials demonstrating the value of technology in the dryland broadacre low-rainfall farming system

Mackay Sugar Ltd
Reduce Sugar Cane Harvest losses by installing Loss Monitors in Cane harvesters

Plane Creek Grower Group
To understand the relative health of a sugarcane crop through the use of drone technology.

Cape York Weeds and Feral Animals Incorporated
Annan, Endeavour and Normanby Catchment’s Community, Producer Technology Uptake-Building Drought Resilience

Gulf Savannah NRM
Data for the Future

Herbert River District Canegrowers Organisation
Productivity Booster – Loss Reducer

McLaren Vale Grape Wine and Tourism
AgTech Ready – McLaren Vale Wine Region

2023 Producer group grant recipients

St Catherine’s Catholic College Singleton

St Catherine’s Livestock Technology Enablers Project

Grain Producers SA

Connecting the unconnected for on-farm technology adoption

Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School

Farmers targets for change

Northern Australia Crop Research Alliance

Beyond pretty green pictures – Interpreting and ground-truthing satellite imagery for farmers in the Ord River Irrigation Area

Crop Research on Production Systems (CROPS)

Building Mesonet Capacity and Adoption in the Avon Region

Australian Prune Industry Association Inc

Demonstration of fruit scanning technology to Australian prune growers to improve their commercial viability

Ag Logic partnered with NRM Cradle Coast

Improving drought resilience and on farm decision making through a localised weather station network and monitoring equipment

Fruit Growers Tasmania Inc.

Digital labour management system adoption program for Tasmanian fruit producers

Lucerne Australia

Practical AgTech: existing and emerging innovations

Corinda State High School

Smart Farm Dashboard

Meridian Ag on behalf of The 5 Bees

Support commercial beekeepers in trialling the use of technologies to capture, analyse and share data (including provenance and traceability) and to determine the value of that data to their businesses

Hagley Farm School Agricultural Learning Centre

Farming Smarter with Ag Digi-Tech: inspiring future industry leaders who understand and value the positive impacts of digital technologies in sustainable production systems

Manjimup Senior High School

Utilising automated watering systems and soil moisture probes to compare watering
strategies and ensure water use efficiency.

SheepMetriX

eID Implementation on farm

Certified Organic Biodynamic Western Australia Inc

Tech Tooling Soil and Plant Health

Rice Research Australia

Connecting Rice Research to the Internet of Things and beyond

Perennial Pasture Systems/Girls & Grass Advisory Group

AgTech road trip and showcase tour of technology on farm

WA College of Agriculture Morawa

Innovation Connectivity in the Midwest zone

Harden Murrumburrah Landcare Group

Facilitating Technology Solutions for Hilltops Farmers

Tobacco & Associated Farmers Co-operative Limited

Increasing producer use of the TAFCO online automatic weather stations

WA College of Agriculture-Harvey

Developing students and staff while improving farm efficiencies

Western Australian College of Education – Cunderdin

The use of Infra-red technologies to improve animal welfare

Rockhampton State High School

Precision Agriculture using ‘Real Data’ in Education

Unity College

Unity College Agricultural Program

Sustainable Horticulture on behalf of Duncan Macadamia Monitoring

Low Cost IoT and Energy Nexus for the Northern Rivers Macadamia Producers

Moorabool Catchment Landcare Group

Producer On-Farm Technology Planning – Moorabool Landcare Catchment Group

Mallee Sustainable Farming Inc

Future of Weed Detection

Coomandook Area School

Coomandook Sheep Yard Redevelopment with Technology Integration

 

Targeted Northern Australia Grant Recipients

Northern Hub | Central Australia Artificial Insemination (AI) Technology Support Group

Central Australia Artificial Insemination (AI) Technology Support Group

Northern Hub | Kimberley and Pilbara Herd Management Group

Improving technology adoption for more effective and efficient herd management in the
Kimberley and Pilbara

Northern Hub | Northern Territory Cattlemans Association

NTCA Blackbox Workshop

Progression Grant Recipients

Ag Logic Pty Ltd 

Value added weather station network creating a robust support system

Apple and Pear Australia Limited

Variable rate fertiliser applications in orchards: costs, benefits and return on
investment

Australian Table Grape Association

Large scale automated visual yield estimation in table grape vineyards

Bowen Gumlu Growers Association 

BGGA Agtech Activators project

Cape York Weeds and Feral Animals Incorporated 

Annan, Endeavour and Normanby Catchment’s Community Progression Project

Certified Organic Biodynamic Western Australia 

Support for producers to access the most appropriate soil and plant health measuring tools.

Facey Group

Supporting better decision-making through increasing farmers data-based knowledge

Fruit Growers Victoria Limited

Fruit Tech 2023

Grain Producers SA

Connecting the unconnected for on-farm technology adoption progression project

Rice Research Australia 

Completing the connectivity map

Riverine Plains

Agtech trials & Annual Innovation Conferences

SheepMetriX

eID Implementation Support Project

Southern Growers Inc

Encouraging adoption of cost efficient, accurate moisture monitoring in the irrigated farming
system

Victorian Strawberry Growers Association 

Supporting for berry farmers to further build understanding and capacity in technology, whilst undertaking trials and implementation assistance

Viticulture Society of the Canberra District Incorporated Association

Digital viticulture technology for the Canberra Wine District

Woorak Community and Land Management Group

Soil moisture sensor network dashboard upgrade and soil interpretation in the Northern Wimmera