INTHEBLACK May 2026 - Magazine - Page 23
“Rather than the old method — ‘it is looking like a dry spell,
we will turn the water up’ — a lot of the decision-making
will be around data analytics, and being able to utilise
and understand the technology that is available.”
KATRINA WATT CPA, SUNITAFE
be able to send signals to the farmers
in terms of, ‘This is what we want to eat,
this is how we would like agricultural
products to be taken care of, this is how we
would like farm residue to be used instead
of burnt off ’, and so on. The third layer
is about engaging more people in the process
outside of the farmer and the buyer, so
signals can be shared.”
In this view, smart farming is not merely
about precision agriculture. It can enable
the creation of a new social contract around
food production.
REACTIVE TO PROACTIVE FARMING
The transition to smart farming requires skills
that have previously been considered mainly
relevant for urban and city residents.
SuniTAFE, in Victoria’s Sunraysia region,
has developed a SMART Farm initiative
to train people to assist in the transition.
Katrina Watt CPA is the senior manager
of education delivery at SuniTAFE. She says
the most significant shift as smart agriculture
evolves is the move from reactive to
proactive farming.
Farmers have long had to rely on intuition
and the know-how gained from experience,
she says. But now, and increasingly in the
future, they will make forward-looking
decisions based on data fed from sensors
and from local, regional, national and global
databases into farm dashboards.
“Rather than the old method — ‘it is looking
like a dry spell, we will turn the water up’ — a
lot of the decision-making will be around
data analytics, and being able to utilise and
understand the technology that is available,”
Watt says. “It is more about precision farming,
gathering that data and being able to interpret
it into useful information.”
Here, the challenge and opportunity of
smart farming become clearer. As automation
reduces reliance on manual labour, the skill
level of farm workers must adapt to manage
technology and interpret information,
which has not previously been a core part
of farming.
In regional labour markets, that creates
entirely new needs and risks.
COST VS BENEFIT
The financial case for or against smart
farming is not straightforward.
Omri Rahamim, Australia and APAC
general manager at Fieldin, says data-driven
insights can reveal and solve massive
inefficiencies in areas such as machinery
use, fuel consumption, spraying practices and
other activities that can drive cost savings
and improve quality and compliance.
“Our job is to help agricultural businesses
identify their true potential and their true
performance, then see what the gap is,”
Rahamim says. “And then, it is to understand
what can really move the needle, where they
should focus to shrink that gap.”
In practice, this can mean optimising
spraying to reduce chemical overuse, placing
refill points at different locations across
the farm to minimise downtime, or
benchmarking performance against local
or global peers.
However, while future cost savings
are a worthy concept, the upfront cost
burden must also be taken into account,
says Patrick Viljoen FCPA, environmental,
social and governance (ESG) lead at
CPA Australia.
“To get to that transition point, there is
going to be capital expenditure,” says Viljoen,
who witnessed first-hand the financial
realities of life on the land, having grown
up on a farm. “You need to buy sensors. You
need to buy, rent or at least get somebody in
who can set up and operate drone technology,
for example.”
Just like in the renewable energy transition
space, the long-term operating savings may
be real, but they must be weighed against
the initial capital outlay and financing costs,
he says.
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