Precision Ag Symposium concludes in Perth for 2023
Photo courtesy of SPAA
The annual Australian Precision Agriculture Symposium, hosted by the Society of Precision Agriculture Australia (SPAA) in collaboration with the University of Sydney, successfully wrapped up its three-day event in Perth, Western Australia, on Wednesday, 6 September.
The symposium brought together researchers, technical farmers, agronomists, and industry reps, to hear the latest developments in precision agriculture (PA) across the spectrum of agricultural industries, including grains, broadacre cropping viticulture and animal welfare.
Highlights included:
- Farmer knowledge sharing: James Venning (SA), Brad Eagan (WA), and Tom Longmire (WA) shared their invaluable experiences and insights during keynote sessions. The key take aways were – “Precision ag starts with P – replace P”, “intuition + data = decision” and “mapping iscritical for operations”.
- A panel discussion with the future of precision farming with James Venning, Brad Egan, Tom Longmire, Tiarna Kanny (WA) and Andrew Sargent (SA) who brought there varying perspectives on PA in practice.
- The Symposium dinner, sponsored by CSBP featuring cricket legend Brad Hogg discussing the importance of mental health. SPAA legend Frank D'Emden was also acknowledged at the dinner as a Life Member.
- The industry roundtable led by Dr. Julia Easton & Bindi Isbister on interoperability, brought to the surface the opportunities in automation, data standards, enhanced regional connectivity, and the crucial need for industry-wide collaboration.
- Finally, the symposium concluded with a field trip to Bungulla Farm where delegates had an up-close look at Brad Jones' operations including seeing his Swarmbot in action.
A special thanks is extended to all the symposium sponsors, including GRDC, CSBP, John Deere, CaseIH, Hardi, Bayer, Croptimistic, Magrowtec, Axistech, and AgriFutures.
If you missed the symposium, you can view the program proceedings here.