PROJECT - Farm Wide WiFi

The Challenge:

Lack of on-farm connectivity is the single greatest barrier to improving productivity and sustainability in Australian agriculture. Farmers increasingly rely on high-level data analytics, automation and networks of devices that talk to each other. But getting WiFi coverage to run these devices over vast distances and line-of-sight obstacles is a major challenge.

The Solution:

The team is building antenna arrays that can be fitted to mobile and stationary farming equipment to provide long-range communication. Tractors and trucks will become roving WiFi devices with a range of up to five kilometres, providing farm-wide coverage. The technology will be a combination of adapted off-the-shelf and bespoke solutions. The new technology will be built for Australian conditions and will be trialled at the Global Digital Farm at Wagga Wagga.

PROJECT - Smart Farming Data Ecosystem

The Challenge:

Efficient sharing and reuse of that digitised data offers exponentially more opportunities to create new value through optimised operations and new revenue. However, this relies on creating an environment where data is shared securely, where contributors are rewarded for their data and their rights maintained while an ecosystem of organisations can create new value from this data effectively and efficiently. ‍

The Solution:

Telstra’s ‘Farm Data Services’ platform aims to overcome the challenge of securely managing and integrating data from multiple technologies across the farm. Enabled through Telstra’s DataHub, the Farm Data Services is a highly scalable and secure data sharing platform that can integrate, standardise and, with permission of data owner, distribute data sets from existing agtech deployments. This project will develop a proof of concept that will prove the value a platform can provide farmers, agritechs, institutions and researchers, connecting applications across a farm to simplify permissioned sharing of data and creating a single point to access permissioned data for analysis and research.

PROJECT - Cool Soils Initiative

The Challenge:

The cropping sector has recognised that nutrient inputs have increased to maintain yields, due to depletion of soil fertility and organic matter. As a result, improving soil health is one of the top three production issues that farmers say will affect their farm over the next five years.

The Solution:

The Cool Soil Initiative will work with grain growers through regional farming systems groups to improve understanding of the types of management practices which may be able to mitigate GHG emissions on-farm, without compromising productivity or profitability.

PROJECT - Framework for Sustainability Reporting

The Challenge:

Farmers and agribusinesses need a credible way to demonstrate they are reducing the carbon footprint of the commodities they produce. Showcasing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission management is a Net Zero reporting requirement for all participants in the agricultural supply chain, and is an important factor in reaching Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) milestones. Furthermore, financiers are facing mounting pressure to report climate related exposure, while consumers across domestic and international markets are gradually turning to products that are environmentally sustainable.

The Solution:

This project is seeking to create credible and tangible Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems for the entire agribusiness value chain. These systems will account for emissions reductions resulting from an intervention that would not have otherwise occurred. This strong, standardised, and verifiable MRV system will enhance financial products, assist in the de-risking of investments, and cultivate brand awareness and trust among consumers, both domestically and internationally, resulting in benefits flowing back to all players across the value chain, including farmers and agribusiness.

PROJECT - Rangelands Carbon

The Challenge:‍

The Red Meat industry is committed to a target of net zero emissions by 2030 and Australia is committed to net zero by 2050. Increasing soil and vegetation carbon is one of the greatest tools we have to reduce emissions and can be achieved through improving farming practices. At the same time, the carbon market is growing, offering new revenue streams for savvy and sustainable farmers. However, measuring soil and vegetation carbon across vast rangelands can cost millions and even with the data, understanding management options and sequestration potential is difficult.

The Solution:

The project team is developing models and tools to accurately and affordably estimate soil and vegetation carbon in Australian rangelands, unlocking 75% of the country’s landmass to reach its carbon sequestration potential. The team will establish a baseline measure of carbon in soil and woody cover vegetation (trees) across Australian rangelands, estimate changes in carbon over time and in response to different landscape management practices, and advise industry on opportunities to improve carbon sequestration.

CSU's role:

Researchers at CSU are using UAV technology to bridge the gap between ground observations and satellite measurements for quantifying the pasture biomass and land cover of rangelands in Australia. The first round of UAV sampling was conducted in August 2023 with numerous flights completed across both QLD and the NT. This work has been done in collaboration with CiboLabs and UTS.

PROJECT - Haystack Fire Prevention

The Challenge:

Haystack fires happen spontaneously and with little warning. Variables, such as moisture at harvest/storage, sugar levels, aeration, and temperature, can play a factor in the likelihood of a fire occurring. However, these factors are not quantified or modelled, leaving farmers to rely on decades old approaches such as testing with crowbars. ‍

The Solution:

The project team will review what pieces of data are most essential to understanding haystack degradation, as a precursor to fires, and how to process that data so that it can be transmitted through the existing limitations of satellite technologies. This will allow for monitoring on properties that have low telecommunications coverage.

PROJECT - TRAKKA: Making Data Flow

The challenge:

Across Australia many auction houses are offering a price premium for cattle with complete data records of on farm management. But right now, even for producers rich in data, it is difficult to share and subsequently control these disparate data flows. Often, sharing data from one app to another is impossible, and if data sharing is available, producers face significant security and privacy challenges. This siloed data environment makes it difficult for service providers to refine their offerings, discourages new data-reliant industries from participating in the sector, prevents producers from deriving value from their own data, and limits the value of service providers who cannot use their data to support multiple applications along the supply chain.

The solution:

This project aims to transform the red meat supply chain by developing a self-sustaining data-sharing platform called ‘TRAKKA’ that enables data (and consequently, value) to flow in all directions along the supply chain. The TRAKKA website will allow producers to opt in and out of sharing their data with the AgTech and service providers they need at the click of a button. Meanwhile, service providers will gain access to the critical data they need to build more useful integrated services for producers. To facilitate data exchanges between producers and service providers, researchers from the Gulbali Institute and the Global Digital Farm at Charles Sturt University, in partnership with tech company TerraCipher, will investigate the data collection systems and formats used across the red meat value chain, and identify opportunities to generate value for producers. The team will then develop innovative digital infrastructure, including a data sharing platform and producer-controlled dashboard. An ‘event-based messaging service’ will act as the pipework to get data from A to B, making data easier to manage and more accessible. An 'event' refers to any new piece of data relating to an animal, such as movements, health records and performance data.

PROJECT - Drought Resilience Farmlets - Empowering Generation Z

The Empowering Generation Z project aims to develop drought resilience demonstration farmlets to provide Charles Sturt University students in the disciplines of Agricultural Science, Veterinary Science, Animal Science and Agribusiness with knowledge and hands-on experience in developing, monitoring and managing a drought resilient farming system. The Drought Resilience Demonstration Farmlets will expose students to regionally relevant best practices for drought resilience and make comparisons with industry average practices. Comparison between the best practice and average farmlet will show the impact on natural resources, animal wellbeing, production and personal wellbeing that result from applying best practice. Students will devise strategies, collect data and monitor key production and environmental parameters and learn the skill of evidence-based decision-making and management. The GDF team has helped set up the data collection programs used by both students and researchers. This project received funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.

ACTIVITY - Precision Cropping

Precision cropping is being conducted on Charles Sturt's 280Ha cropping block, 'Dhulura'. Precision agriculture seeks to manage the crop production system by recognising variation and managing different areas of land differently, according to a range of economic and environmental goals. In 2023, this was conducted for a variable rate application of lime across Dhulura, based on pH soil sampling that was conducted across the 4 paddocks.

ACTIVITY - High-Resolution UAV Imagery

Across the university farm and in numerous off-farm projects, the Global Digital Farm team has captured terabytes of High-Resolution UAV Imagery. Imagery has been collected using RGB, Multi-spectral and LiDAR sensing systems, and flown via the DJI Matrice 300 RTK. This has been done for applications of precision mapping, mapping of vegetative health and productivity, and mapping of land cover and vegetation type using 3D reconstruction.

ACTIVITY - Remote Weather Station

Multiple METOS weather stations are located around the farm. This allows for remote monitoring of temperature, rainfall, wind speed, Delta T and solar radiation. Data collected is then displayed in FieldClimate, which gathers, calculates, analyses and graphically presents the data from measurements done by the sensor in the field.

ACTIVITY - GDF Dashboard by Pairtree Intelligence

Charles Sturt University’s AgriPark, and Global Digital Farm along with partner organisation Food Agility have engaged with Pairtree Intelligence to provide a single point of access for the multiple tech systems used across the farm. A new platform has been created, which houses all the different data points and systems, as well as data feeds such as weather and market information, and enables exporting of integrated data sets for analytical purposes. This new capability means the Global Digital Farm offers a more seamless AgTech experience for Charles Sturt researchers and students. Following the success of this platform, a second customised dashboard is in development to provide more accessibility of the Global Digital Farm to industry and the public. Pairtree is enabling farmers, AgTech device suppliers, corporate agribusinesses, major industry groups, government agencies and research organisations to utilise data and maximise the benefits of the smart farm revolution. The company turns farm data into insights to help drive efficiencies and improve decision-making support and confidence.

ACTIVITY - Animal Performance Innovations

Automated, in-paddock livestock weighing systems using Optiweigh technology offer the potential to remotely track and forecast animal live-weight gain. This is fundamental to livestock producers for tactical decision-making around paddock/feed allocation, management interventions and for planning around market readiness. Getting the best out of such technologies requires substantial work in understanding the intrinsic variability between animals in a herd as well as between measurements over time.

FACILITY - Rhizolysimeter

Charles Sturt's Rhizolysimeter is the largest root growth and soil water research facility in the Southern Hemisphere and contains 96 intact soil monoliths (2500mm height and 740mm inside diameter) encased in 6mm steel tubes. The encased monoliths are arranged in 6 rows across two underground laboratories which allow access to the sides of each soil monolith from 600mm-2500mm beneath the soil surface.

FACILITY - Phytotron and Growth Chambers

Charles Sturt's Phytotron is a large, open plan space with areas for working with plants and soils including:

• dehydrators
• plant and soil grinding rooms
• cold rooms
• dry storage area
• vacuum digging equipment
• soil sterilisation and root washing facilities.

Housed within the Phytotron, the University's thirteen large growth chambers, including two specialist chambers for frost conditions and CO2, are temperature, light and humidity controlled to provide the perfect environment for plant and soil testing.

FACILITY - Cattle Feedlot

Featuring GrowSafe technology the cattle feedlot is designed to provide research and training opportunities to students studying both agriculture and animal science subjects.