AgVic Talk Season 5

Speaker 1:

Welcome to AgVic Talk, keeping you up to date with information from Agriculture Victoria.

Drew Radford:

Cutting power costs through AgTech and renewables can result in unexpected benefits. In some instances, it can be days of labor saved each week.

Drew Radford:

G'day. I'm Drew Radford, and this was the case for Sandra Jefford, co-owner and manager of Wilandra Farms. The dairy property's huge power bills were going to drive her and her family out of business. So they took action and installed renewable power sources and also AgTech energy saving solutions. To discuss them in detail, she joins me for this AgVic Talk podcast. Sandra, thanks for your time.

Sandra Jefford:

That's all right.

Drew Radford:

Sandra, you run a dairy farm. Whereabouts is this farm and what sort of size are you talking in terms of property and cattle that you're running on it?

Sandra Jefford:

I farm with my husband, Wilco Droppert, and our son, Luke and staff. We came here about 11 years ago after we were dairy farming in West Gippsland. The farm is about 870 acres, but out of that, we've got about 450 acres of good centre pivot irrigation, and we're milking about 380 cows year-round.

Drew Radford:

It's a reasonable size property, 380 cows, but I think probably what a lot of people don't really appreciate with dairy operations is you guys chew through a bit of electricity. How much electricity were you using a year?

Sandra Jefford:

Well, this is an irrigation dairy farm, so our average annual rainfall is about 600 mm in a good year. But we're on sandy loam soil, and we do do quite a lot of irrigation, and we're not on the local water channel system. We pump all of our water out of bores and from the Avon river, and the energy bills were huge. We were using about 500,000 kilowatts of electricity a year, and 70% of that was for irrigation, and the balance was in the dairy.

Drew Radford:

Those must have been massive power bills. That'd be an understatement. And that was before the power spike of this year.

Sandra Jefford:

That's right. They were huge bills, and we'd come from a high rainfall area. I'd never been involved in irrigation before, and I was really shocked at the size of the bills. So we realised we had to do something to review that because it just wasn't viable for a farm of our size to have those sorts of bills.

Drew Radford:

And a percentage of that was also diesel, I understand, because not all the pumps were connected to electricity.

Sandra Jefford:

That's right. We were using quite a lot of diesel to pump the water out of the dam. Diesel has more than doubled in the last 18 months. So we're very pleased that we've been able to get away from those big diesel bills at the dam. We've still got diesel bills for the tractors, and we've got a couple of pivots that run on diesel, but we'll look at how we can electrify those things in the future.

Drew Radford:

So you were faced pretty much with the decision of either find another way of generating power, or it sounds like get out of where you were farming. So obviously you're still there. What was your first step in trying to resolve this issue?

Sandra Jefford:

Sustainability Victoria had a grant scheme available back in about 2018, where you could apply for a grant to have an energy audit done. So we did that and we were introduced to a fantastic auditor, a guy called Rob from South Australia. And he's a pumping system specialist. And because it was our irrigation pumping system that we really needed to review, it was great to have Rob come over here for three or four days, and he really reviewed the whole system.

Drew Radford:

Well, the review sounds substantial to say the least. So what did he recommend that you start putting in place?

Sandra Jefford:

He gave us a report that reviewed all components of the irrigation system, and he gave us very detailed recommendations for what we could do at each site to reduce the amount of power that we needed. So that included things like putting variable speed drives in place, increasing pipe diameter. His report was so good. We wanted to generate our own clean energy because we could see, not only did we have the big power bills, but we were also responsible for really big greenhouse gas emissions, and we didn't want to be in that situation. So soon after we had the energy audit report, we went off and found somebody who could help us look at renewable energy. And they developed a renewable energy action plan that matched our energy needs to what we could generate.

Drew Radford:

I'd imagine that plan would involve a bit because you're using quite a bit of energy. So what have you started to put in place to generate your own power?

Sandra Jefford:

It was quite a long development process, and like a lot of farms it's quite complicated because different owners in the past have bought different titles and put them together. You've got these invisible title lines, but when you generate power, you can't actually put the power over a title line at the moment. So what we ended up with was 200 kilowatts of solar panels, but they're at two different sites. There's 50 kilowatts at one bore and there's 150 kilowatts of solar at another site, a long way from the bore with the 50 kilowatts. And that solar power is used to provide power to two pumps that get the water out of the dam. And we've installed a private power line to get that solar power to another bore that we use to get the water into the dam. So that system is all operating and the energy system is integrated with the irrigation management system.

Sandra Jefford:

There's also a water height sensor in the dam. So the system knows whether or not we need to be dumping water into the dam. And still to come, there'll be two 15 kilowatt wind turbines located near the 150 kilowatts of solar panels, because we're quite close to Lake Wellington, which is to the east of us, and pretty well every afternoon through our irrigation season, from September to April, we get an easterly wind, and that will usually continue after the sunset. So we're hoping that's going to extend the period with which we can be irrigating with our own power.

Drew Radford:

There's quite a bit going on there. I just want to go back one step. I'm really surprised that you have this impediment in terms of you've got a bunch of titles, but technically you can't move power across your own boundaries.

Sandra Jefford:

I believe it's an international situation, which is slowly being reviewed, but it's a policy change that's required.

Drew Radford:

Obviously you found a way to work your way around it, but it sounds like an unnecessary piece of the jigsaw that you had to resolve.

Sandra Jefford:

Well, we haven't resolved it because we were initially hoping that we were going to be allowed to run an on-farm microgrid. So that would've meant that some of the power that's being generated at the back of the farm could be directed to the dairy whilst we're milking, so that we could be using our own energy at the dairy. But so far that hasn't eventuated, and we are still using grid power to power the dairy, which is disappointing, but hopefully in the future, things will change because there's a lot of other farms like ours, and it would be better for the grid overall, if farms were able to use their own power in that way.

Drew Radford:

I would imagine too, that that issue needs to be resolved so that you can actually develop a microgrid for farms around you, so you could all be sharing power.

Sandra Jefford:

That's right, because we know that we're on a fairly short power supply line, but there's two other dairy farms on the same line. And if they want to do something similar to what we've done and put in a lot of solar panels, our line won't cope when we're not using the power. So it would be much better overall if this line was managed and all of the other lines around the country.

Drew Radford:

Now, managing all of this power, it comes on at various times. So you mentioned earlier that you have some technology in place to deal with the variability of renewable supplies.

Sandra Jefford:

We all know that solar power is very variable and so is wind. So with having the variable speed drives on the pumps at the bores and the river, means that if we've only got a small amount of power, then that pump can start really slowly, and we're dumping the water in the dam. So the dam is like a big battery. It is storing the water, ready, which makes this system work really well. And then once we've got enough power to run the pivots, then they start and the pumps start the dam to get the water to the pivots. So the management system is really important. If you were to try and put solar panels at a bore and hope to run the pivot, it won't work because you don't have that constant supply of power. So the dam in the middle is really important.

Sandra Jefford:

Before we started this project, we used to double pump a lot of water. So we would pump it from, for example, the river or the bores, dump it in the dam, using grid power. And then we would use the diesel to pump it out again. And I hated that double pumping, because I thought it was costing us so much. But now, pumping it twice is actually the perfect solution because we're using our free power to get the water into the dam. Then again, we pump it out using our renewable energy when we've got it available. We do have some battery storage, just a small amount. There's 56 kilowatt hours of battery storage, but we actually haven't started using that yet. So that'll come online for this next irrigation season.

Drew Radford:

Sandra, I imagine that in amongst all of this, there's quite a bit of labour saving as well. You or your husband must have been spending quite a bit of time driving around turning pumps on and off, and now it sounds like a lot of that's automated.

Sandra Jefford:

We had no idea how much time we were going to save. And we think it's about 15 hours a week because somebody had to drive to the pivot to start with, start that, then drive to the water sources. And there would've usually been two water sources. So you had to go to, for example, the dam and start that and then maybe go to the bore and start that.

Sandra Jefford:

Another thing that's changed is that we used to do most of the irrigation at night using off peak power. Now, because we're using our solar power, we're irrigating during the day. So that means if there's a problem with a pivot, we know about it, our phone tells us, or we see that the light stopped flashing. So you can go and fix the problem straight away. Whereas with our old system, with irrigating at night, if I woke up in the middle of the night, I went and checked that lights were flashing.

Sandra Jefford:

If a light had stopped, it meant I had to wake somebody up and say, "Sorry, you've got to go out. It stopped." Because with our old system, we didn't have any automation. And the water supply didn't know that the pivot had stopped. So the water just kept pumping, which was terrible for the soil underneath the pivot. It was getting water-logged. It was a waste of water and it was a waste of energy, pumping that water going nowhere. So it was a terrible situation and we've changed all of that. So the changes have been really dramatic, much greater than we expected, really. And we're not responsible for those greenhouse gas emissions anymore.

Drew Radford:

I understand there's other energy efficiency measures that you've put in place, particularly in the dairy.

Sandra Jefford:

We've done some work in the dairy. So the first thing we did was replace old vacuum pumps with a new vacuum pump. So that was an easy change. We've put in quite a lot of sensors and monitoring equipment, and that's been great. So that monitors power use and temperatures at various points through the dairy. And that can send us alerts if we have a problem. For example, if milk temperature increases during the night, there's obviously a problem, so we need to know about that. In the same way, if the hot water isn't up to temperature, we want to know about that. And that system is allowing us to monitor the changes that we make in the dairying.

Sandra Jefford:

We've also installed a CO2 heat pump, which we were a bit nervous about at the start, because it's so expensive. It's a lot more expensive than putting in a conventional hot water service, but it uses apparently about a third of the power, but it's not as easy as we would like. It's certainly not as easy as a conventional hot water service, and we had a lot of problems. So at this stage, we're not big fans of the heat pump.

Sandra Jefford:

We've got other changes to make, but the changes were based on having a microgrid because if we were able to use some surplus power from other parts of the farm during the middle of the day, we would be chilling water, so that once we're milking in the afternoon, we can chill the milk very quickly with this chilled water. But because the microgrid's on hold, we're still tossing up what we should do. So we've had 29 kilowatts of solar at the dairy for about four years now, which is helping us to some extent, but we'll review whether we need more renewable energy at the dairy or whether the microgrid's going to be feasible. So we've got more work to do at the dairy.

Drew Radford:

Well, it sounds like you've done a massive amount of work, and monitoring keeps on coming up in this in terms of, well, we just get notifications. I understand you've even taken that to your herd as well, in terms of monitoring each cow so that you're not having to physically check all the time.

Sandra Jefford:

Yes. Like a lot of other farms, we applied for a grant through the Internet of Things and we were able to buy the collars for the cows. We'd used something very similar a few years ago. We had four robots to milk the cows. We didn't go well with the robots, and we sold those and went back to a conventional herring bone dairy. But we had to return the collars as well or sell the collars, which was disappointing because we knew how good they were and the benefits that they offered us.

Sandra Jefford:

So, yes, we've gone back to the collars and they're fantastic for when you're joining, which cows are on heat. We've put in a draft gate that works with the cow collars. So it's really easy to get the cows for joining drafted into the side yard. So we're very happy with that system. And that's giving us a bit of energy saving as well, because we used to check the cows to see which cows were on heat ready for joining four times a day. So we don't have to do that at all now. The phone just tells us in the morning, which cows are ready for joining. They get drafted, they're joined. So it's a very good system.

Drew Radford:

Sandra, you've done so much work. My mind is struggling trying to conceptualize how much work. It's a lot of money too. What are you looking at in terms of a return on investment, your payback period, for all of this?

Sandra Jefford:

We think it's going to be about seven years. That was the calculation that was done before we started the work. Because this wasn't a typical irrigation season this last year, we'll do more number crunching after this next irrigation season. But the costs of power associated with our main meter for irrigation were previously about 24 cents per kilowatt hour. And this last irrigation season that was down to minus 3 cents per kilowatt hour.

Drew Radford:

That's phenomenal. So if you've got seven year payback period, your profit line is going to be looking very healthy going into the future.

Sandra Jefford:

It's very exciting, isn't it?

Drew Radford:

Yeah. Well, you've got rid of this massive ongoing cost and you've really changed the dynamics of your business into the future.

Sandra Jefford:

It's really exciting. There's so many benefits that we haven't expected. And with climate change, we wanted to show that farmers are part of the solution. People keep going on about methane emissions from cows, but farmers can change so much on the farm that we're good for the future of the planet.

Drew Radford:

Well, you're also very important for the future of planet because I've got a vested interest in eating, as we all do. So it's a really interesting balance that you try and strike. Lastly, what would your key piece of advice be, Sandra, for other farmers that hear this and go, I want to undertake an energy journey?

Sandra Jefford:

First thing I'd recommend, everybody should have an energy audit done by an auditor that they have a good relationship with. They've got to trust and have ownership of the report that comes back, because we've spoken to other farmers who've had an audit report and they've got no ownership. They have no attachment to the recommendations and they haven't taken much action, whereas ours is on my desk. We've used it so much. We were just so lucky, we met the right auditor and we've implemented his recommendations and gone a whole lot further because we met the right business that developed the renewable energy action plan.

Sandra Jefford:

And the next thing would be, go and look at other farms that have done something and see whether that's going to be applicable on your farm. Look at how you can shift the load, that is, do things when you've got the renewable energy. I can't see the point in putting all the solar panels on the dairy facing north when you do nothing in the dairy in the middle of the day. And that's what we did. But now that I can see the benefits of having the panels facing north and east and west, it makes a lot of sense.

Drew Radford:

Well, it makes perfect sense to me as well. And I know nothing about this, but I've learned so much from speaking to you, Sandra Jefford, owner and manager of Wilandra Farms. Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your insights with us on this AgVic Talk podcast.

Sandra Jefford:

Thanks, Drew.

Speaker 4:

Thank you for listening to AgVic Talk. For more episodes in this series, find us and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. We would love to hear your feedback, so please leave a comment or rating and share this series with your friends and family.

All information is accurate at the time of release. Contact Agriculture Victoria, or your consultant before making any changes on farm.

This podcast was developed by Agriculture Victoria, authorised by the Victorian Government, Melbourne.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to AgVic Talk, keeping you up to date with information from Agriculture Victoria.

Drew Radford:

If a piece of equipment collects data on your farm, do you then own and control that information? It's an important question because data is usually worth money. It's also a difficult question because the machinery collecting the data is often very complicated and connects to the internet. So unless you're an IT guru, it's difficult to know what data is being uploaded. The National Farmer's Federation is trying to demystify this with the Australian Farm Data Code. One of the people behind it is Andrea Koch, Chair of the NFF Farm Data Working Group, and also CEO and Founder of DIGISOIL. To take a deep data dive, she joins us for this AgVic Talk podcast. Andrea, thanks for your time.

Andrea Koch:

Thanks so much. Thanks for having me on.

Drew Radford:

Andrea, sometimes you come across technologists who've ended up in farming. That's not the case for you, though. It's the other way around, isn't it?

Andrea Koch:

Well, it's a bit of a mixed story, really. So I grew up on a farm in South Australia. I'm the fifth generation, so agriculture's really in my DNA, but my career was really... I did a marketing degree, a business degree to start off with, and a bit of science at uni and went off into technology-based companies as a marketing and product development executive. So I spent 15 years with IBM, Optus, and News Limited. And then later on, I sort of pivoted into sustainable development and started to focus on food and agriculture and really specifically, soil. And so when the whole sort of digital agriculture thing started to emerge, I really just combined all of that into this digital agriculture space.

Drew Radford:

I read a line from your website that said you envisage a future where digital technology underpins our farming sector being the most competitive and innovative in the world. It's a big statement, so what does AgTech mean to you?

Andrea Koch:

Well, it's interesting. I sort of make a distinction between AgTech and digital agriculture. So AgTech is really technically an investment category where the sort of investment sector technology companies and so forth have seen agriculture as an opportunity for development of technology and digitization. And we've had this investment category of AgTech emerge over the last sort of 5 to 7, 10 years, and it grew really, really quickly. So in 2010, it was around 400 million, and by 2016, it was up to 3.6 billion, and it's been growing ever since then. So we've had this rapid sort of entry of technologists and financiers and venture capital investment into agriculture, and that's sort of how I classify AgTech.

Andrea Koch:

Digital agriculture, on the other hand, is really about the digitization of agriculture and the bringing in of technologies like the Internet of Things, big data analysis, sensing technologies, remote sensing from satellites or drones, all of those types of technologies. So it's much more about the application of digital technology into agriculture and farming systems. And obviously, those two things overlap greatly, the sort of AgTech investment startup space with the emergence of those technologies in agriculture. But that's kind of how I see it.

Drew Radford:

It's a really interesting distinction, Andrea. I'm getting the impression, though, really central to that and your work you do is data.

Andrea Koch:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, all of these technologies produce data. At the end of the day, that's what they do. And so it's really about setting up systems which collect the right data and then process that data and then give you information that either you or a machine can take some action on and make better decisions about the farming system.

Drew Radford:

Well, let's drill down into this data side a bit further, Andrea. That's the focus of today's podcast. So what are some common devices farmers are finding useful for collecting actionable data?

Andrea Koch:

Soil moisture probes would be one that people in the AgTech world get very excited about, but actually, it's a very mature technology. It's been around for sort of 15, 20 years, very much used in irrigated systems and increasingly used in dry land, broadacre systems as well. And this technology, basically, is a probe that goes down into the soil and can tell you how much moisture there is in the soil and give you a data read on that at any time, generally putting together with a weather station so that you can get highly localized weather data, much more localized than the Bureau of Meteorology can provide. So that's a very mature technology through to yield data that's being collected by harvesters where the harvest is actually measuring what the yield is as the harvest is moving along the paddock. That information, then, can be used for creating prescriptions for variable rate application of fertilizers or anything, really.

Andrea Koch:

I think the really exciting space for broadacre would be in weed management, the use of what we call green on green sensing technology. So a sensor that would be attached to an implement that's going across the paddock that would sense a particular weed type in the midst of the crop and then spray a highly targeted amount of spray at that particular weed, rather than just board application across.

Andrea Koch:

So there's so many. I've just kind of explained a few there.

Drew Radford:

Yeah, well, you have explained a few there, and you're right. There are so many, and it's growing exponentially as is the amount of data being collected. I assume that's been huge over 10 years in terms of the growth there.

Andrea Koch:

Yeah, well, it always has been. And one of the issues that we hear in the cropping sector is that these tractors and harvesters and things that the farmers are purchasing usually come pre-kitted with all of that technology. So the machine's got the capacity to collect the data and quite often it does, but farmers don't know what to do with it all. So we've already got this massive collection of data that's going on. And the challenge, then, is how do I wrangle it? How do I use it? How do I put it to some sort of good use? So that's just one example of where there's masses of data being collected, but not necessarily yet being put to the best use.

Drew Radford:

And then that begs the question, Andrea. Who owns the data that's collected?

Andrea Koch:

Ah, that's a very fraught question, and the technical answer is no one really owns the data. Data can't be owned, but I'd be sort of taking us down into a legal rabbit hole there. So I think the question we should be asking is who has control over the data and how it's used and how it's shared and how it's gathered. That's probably a better question to ask. That's the question that we're trying to answer with the farm data code that's been developed by the National Farmers Federation.

Drew Radford:

So it's a work in progress.

Andrea Koch:

No, it's the first version of the code was launched in early 2020, and there's an ongoing review process of the code because as with all things technology, these things are evolving really rapidly. So it will be constantly sort of reviewed and updated as we go along, but it's definitely out there and in use at the moment.

Drew Radford:

It's an interesting space, then, because are there protections in place for farmers' data that they collect in the process of the work?

Andrea Koch:

The best thing that a farmer can do is to ask a lot of questions of their technology suppliers, ask them the question, "What do you do with my data? How do you look after it? Who has access to it? Who controls it?" And really, the only way that a farmer can actually be assured of how much control they have and where their data is going and how it's being used is if they understand as a part of the service agreement that they have with that provider, what are the terms and conditions? It will be in there in the terms and conditions of the agreement and the contract. And this is not just for agriculture. This is across the board. The only real assurance you can have about how your data is used, how it's shared, how it's controlled is through the contract or the service agreement that you have with the supplier that's of the technology.

Drew Radford:

That's incredibly complicated, isn't it? In reality, I mean, people don't read the contracts that come with their phones and they're incredible data collection devices, and I imagine a header would be the same. A farmer would pull up and the device would connect to its WiFi. Unless you've read those agreements, you'd have no idea what's being streamed back to whatever supplier.

Andrea Koch:

That's exactly right, and that's the issue. And as consumers, we've all been conditioned to just hit that button. We scroll through the terms and conditions as fast as we possibly can to get to that button and click Yes, so that we can get whatever it is that we want to get. So we've definitely been conditioned not to think about these things as consumers and that kind of rolls over in terms of... and I know I do it myself in my own business. I'll be looking for some kind of online service, and I won't read the terms and conditions. I'll just kind of click Go.

Andrea Koch:

So that's really what the farm data code is trying to address, and what it's trying to do is to provide a service to farmers and service providers, tech service providers, where we basically established a set of principles, which we believe are the right principles in terms of how farm data should be managed and the transparency around some of these issues of control and access and sharing. They become the sort of starting points for farmers to be asking questions. Where we get to with the code is that we are putting a certification process in place whereby a technology provider will be actually certified against those principles, either from a perspective of just transparency about how they align with them or from a compliance perspective that they actually comply with these principles. And that will then give the farmer some assurance that their data's going to be looked after according to the principles in the code.

Drew Radford:

It's an incredible streamlining process then. So it's essentially a tick of approval and you know that this device has fallen under those guiding principles. So my mind doesn't have to explode sifting through 30 pages of documentation trying to work out what it means.

Andrea Koch:

That's exactly right.

Drew Radford:

You mentioned there's so much data being collected. The question then is how do you use it? There must be a whole space, then, in terms of tech agronomists helping you apply that data.

Andrea Koch:

That's where we need to head, where we've got experts in farming systems that know how to take that information and turn it into decisions, but that's not easy. I mean, there's a big sort of gap between a device that's gathering or generating huge amounts of data, and then there's a number of steps then involved in actually getting that data, processing it that can then be turned into a decision. And so there's lots of different layers in all of that, and that's why we're seeing a proliferation of new entrants from the AgTech world into agriculture into farming systems to actually try and make sense of all that data and turn it into something that's usable by farmers and their advisors.

Drew Radford:

It's almost the space that can make your head explode, though, because there is so much data, but it really comes back to the question, then, you touched on it of what's the decision I need to make. Why am I doing this? How's it going to help me as opposed to, "Wow, that's amazing. I've got spreadsheet after spreadsheet, but so what?"

Andrea Koch:

Yeah. Yeah. So from the farmer's perspective, I always come back to this idea that you've got to understand what the value is to you of any technology. If it looks as though or if it sounds as though or if you've seen evidence that this piece of technology is actually going to add value to you and that there's a clear value proposition and you know how it's going to fit and how it's going to improve your life or your farming system or your output or whatever it is that you're trying to improve, then that should be the trigger for taking it on. And that puts the onus back on all of the technology providers, then, to get that right, to get that value proposition right.

Drew Radford:

Lastly, Andrea, what excites you about the future of on-farm data?

Andrea Koch:

My particular area of deep expertise is in soil, digital soil data, and through my company, what we are doing is to create digital twins of soil at paddock scale and use that then to create maps of soil going down the profile and across the paddock. It's mind-blowing in terms of what we will be able to do now in terms of managing paddocks and managing soil and managing farming systems once we know what soil variability we've got down the profile and across the paddock. I think it will really change how we look at our paddocks, how we look at our farms, and we're already seeing that with some of our customers. When that paddock gets revealed to them and the story of the soil is actually kind of revealed to them in these very easy to read maps, you can just see their minds ticking over and they're starting to think about what they'll do differently.

Andrea Koch:

And they're actually going out and getting across the paddock and standing there and thinking about it differently, looking at it differently, digging down and ground-truthing themselves. It changes how they think about their paddock, so in a good way, in a much more nuanced way. So I find that really exciting to think this digital technology packaged up in the right way and provided as a really clear information sourced back to the growers and to their agronomists. It should just make their life easier. It should just make the way that they run their businesses more efficient, more profitable, more sustainable. That's the promise. But yeah, there's a lot of work behind the scenes to get us to that point with a new digital technology.

Drew Radford:

Andrea Koch, Chair of the NFF Farm Data Working Group, and also CEO and Founder of DIGISOIL, thank you for taking the time and sharing your insights with us on this AgVic Talk podcast.

Andrea Koch:

Thank you so much.

Speaker 4:

Thank you for listening to AgVic Talk. For more episodes in this series, find us and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. We would love to hear your feedback. So please leave a comment or rating and share this series with your friends and family. All information is accurate at the time of release. Contact Agriculture Victoria or your consultant before making any changes on farm. This podcast was developed by Agriculture Victoria, authorized by the Victorian Government, Melbourne.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to AgVic Talk, keeping you up to date with information from Agriculture Victoria.

Drew Radford:

Nearly $80,000 a year to run your irrigation pumps is a big incentive to look for a cheaper way to operate your farm. G'day, I'm Drew Radford. And this is a story that's much more than just focusing on cost saving. It's also about cutting greenhouse gas emissions, making a property less labour-intensive. And in a few years' time, also significantly increasing profits. For Christine Sebire and her husband, Andrew, it's been a change in the way they farm and it all started with an energy audit.

Christine Sebire:

My husband, Andrew, and I are dairy farmers. And really, I have to say, he is the dairy farmer and I'm just the accomplish. Mind you, I do the calf rearing, so I earn my keep. We farm at Bamawm Extension, which is about 15 kilometers west of Echuca in northern Victoria.

Drew Radford:

You're dairy farmers now, but you didn't actually come from that background. I understand neither of you are from a farming background?

Christine Sebire:

No, though Andrew's been at it much longer than I have. He was a city boy growing up in Mentone, but then had the great desire to be a farmer. So, found an apprenticeship in the bush and didn't take him long to be a share farmer and then built himself up. He was farming over at Dingee originally, but then moved to Echuca about 15 years ago. And that's when I met him. And then I went from being a very contented primary school teacher to being a farmer as well.

Drew Radford:

It's a great story. I think you're underselling it a little bit because you're now running a herd of 600 head, I understand. That's a reasonable size dairy operation.

Christine Sebire:

It is. And certainly Andrew is very good manager. And so the farm keeps growing bit by bit. Paddocks over the back that become ours and et cetera. And certainly, we take advantage of maximising everything that we can to maximise production across the farm. We like to think that we're heading towards a bit of self-sufficiency. We're primarily pasture-based though we feed silage via troughs. We don't have sophisticated feed systems at this time. We have a large number of young stock on the farm because we rear our steers rather than sending them to market when they're little fellows, we fatten them up a bit. And we are working towards a new dairy. So, we're currently milking those 600 cows in a Herringbone, which is hard work for our staff. So, we are working towards the rotary and then with the rotary, we will increase the herd size. So, we've got a lot of young stock at the ready for that to happen.

Drew Radford:

You've clearly got a vision for the property. And you said there that you're pasture-based, which requires irrigation. For you, I understand that is quite an expensive process and that sent you down a path of going, "Well, how can we save"?

Christine Sebire:

Correct. So, we're pasture-based, yes, but we grow all of our own hay, all of our own silage, and 30% of our grain requirements. So, that's a lot of irrigation. And so we have relied mostly on bore water for that. We have two bores on the property, two deep lead bores, and they run about 100 days a year, and they used to be powered by two diesel pumps. And so that was costing us about $86,000 in diesel back in 2019 in a year. So, it was a huge part of our budget.

Drew Radford:

That's a remarkable amount of money. And I imagine under current prices might almost be double. So, what happened? Did you look at the property and go, "Look, can we move to solar?" And if that was the question, then what's the first step in going down that path?

Christine Sebire:

If we take a few steps back probably, Drew, we were conscious me from a bit of a greeny aspect and certainly Andrew from an economical aspect of the amount of power that we used, the amount of energy that we were using on the farm. And going to dairy workshops around energy, we were always looking at ways that we could be saving power in the dairy. That was sort of the focus that the dairy industry was on. And so it was how can we save in milk cooling and heat transfer and all of those sorts of things. And so the energy audits became available. And so we thought as much probably as an environmental perspective as well as the financial, that we would have an energy audit done to see what we could be doing better.

Christine Sebire:

Process of applying for the audit took a while. Once we were successful that we would be able to have the audit funded, it took quite a while for the auditor to come from Sydney. And then when she did come, the focus initially was very much on yes, the dairy and what we could be doing. But as she progressed in her work, it became evident that the dairy was, for its age and where it was, it was pretty energy-efficient and it was the rest of the farm that was very inefficient. And so that, especially being that it was the irrigation that was taking the most energy.

Drew Radford:

So, that process then, I guess, helped you prioritise your implementation of, well, we're going to replace the pumps with electric pumps. Was that what happened and go to solar?

Christine Sebire:

Basically, yeah. The auditor identified that the diesel consumption for irrigation took up 82% of our energy use. And so that then made it a bit of a no-brainer. And then for me, it was two huge diesel engines that were driving each of those bores. You could hear them across the farm and the neighbours would say they knew when we weren't irrigating, which was a little bit sad and conscious of the amount of carbon that that was emitting. So yeah, the auditor recommended the electrification of the pumps and then converting to solar to then drive them. And that that would give us a cost saving of about $86,000.

Christine Sebire:

So, we had to remove the diesel pumps and then install submersible electric pumps down into the bores. So, that meant that there was work to be done to the bores. And then we've got two arrays of panels, there's 250 panels and they're programmed to track the sun. As the sun rises, the mechanisms kick in and the panels come down and face the rising sun. And then they click their way around all day until the sun sets. And then they click back up to be flat, ready for the next day. And so they're generating power all the time. When they're not generating enough to run the bores, it automatically switches to grid power so that the power is always there so the pumps can always be pumping.

Drew Radford:

It sounds like quite a high-tech operation with all of the different elements that you've got going on there, Christine. How do you go about selecting the right supplier to deal with all of that?

Christine Sebire:

If you're listening carefully, Drew, you know that it's way above my head. We know that it's generating power. We're really proud of the fact that it's state-of-the-art and doing all of those things, but it's high-tech stuff. And so it's way above us.

Christine Sebire:

We were really fortunate that when all of this was initially being discussed, we were actually having work done on our bores and the guys who were servicing our bores. They had been working with a company to install similar projects to what we had in mind in the Southern Riverina. And so they suggested a company that we should partner up with for the solar.

Christine Sebire:

However, as we progressed, we were pretty mindful that if we were dealing with somebody that was from Melbourne and something was going wrong here, they were a long way away. And it came to pass that our own sparky, who we've dealt with forever, he was actually quite experienced in pretty big-scale solar projects. And so he was confident that he would be more than capable of implementing this one. Though he had not done any work with trackers, he was confident that he would be able to adapt, learn. And then he using his knowledge locally was able to source the company through an Echuca business. And so not only were we using our own local tradie, we were then using the local business for the supplier and the installation. So, we were really happy with that because not only were we giving local business support, but if anything goes wrong, they're right there too. So, we're really happy with that outcome in the end.

Drew Radford:

Sounds like a really important outcome because you need confidence levels quite high. This is an entirely new system you're implementing. Were there any significant hurdles that you had to deal with, Christine? I'm sure there were plenty of small ones, but any major ones?

Christine Sebire:

It all took much longer than we thought, but because the sparky was taking responsibility for the projects, as far as the solar went, so that was great.

Christine Sebire:

We did have teething problems. We have an app on the phone that we can track how much power is actually being generated at a time and so forth. The company in Sydney is keeping track of that and actually goes further back to Germany are tracking it as well. But for a while, the panels were stuck flat and they weren't tracking. Yes, we were generating power, but not nearly as much as we should have been. So, bit of Facetiming from down in the paddock where the inverters are, phone up in the air, moving aerials, doing all sorts of things, while the techies are in Sydney telling us what to do. They were giving us instructions of what to do in the inverter space and they were back in Sydney and fixing it all up. We haven't had any issues since. So, that's good 18 months or so ago.

Drew Radford:

18 months ago, and it sounds like things are going really well since then. What sort of payback period are you looking for this?

Christine Sebire:

When the initial audit was done, the payback was anticipated to be six years. However, there's been some bonuses that were quite unexpected. When we were doing the submissions, there was no consideration of how much power we would actually be putting into the grid. Certainly, there was question marks about how much we would be able to put into the grid. But once again, our own local sparky and our very diligent bookkeeper did a lot of negotiation with Powercor. So, now we're able to feed into the grid to a value of about $12,000 per annum. So, that comes back off that six-year payback.

Christine Sebire:

And then we thought we were making savings of about $86,000 in diesel. But as we all know, the price of diesel has just about doubled in these recent years. And so that saving is hugely more than we expected back in 2019. So, yes, the payback is looking ever more impressive.

Drew Radford:

That's remarkable. You've now got a shortened payback period. You've got a great feed-in tariff and you're going to get a significant boost then in your profit line. That's got to feel good. That's a remarkable outcome.

Christine Sebire:

And actually, surprisingly enough, there's a major bonus for what we grow as well. Because the pumps are so much more efficient than the pumps that we had previously, we're able to water a lot more efficiently. And so that watering is having benefits to our actual yields. So, that is another bonus. It's making irrigation more efficient. Because the irrigation is more efficient, man hours spent chasing water is significantly reduced. And also the amount of time spent checking and servicing the old engines, that's also now time that Andrew's got back. So, yeah, there's lots more paybacks than you really even expected.

Drew Radford:

Well, and as you mentioned also, the reduction in carbon output is massive as well. Christine, is there any key piece of advice you'd give other farmers who are considering embarking on their own energy journey?

Christine Sebire:

You really need to approach it with a really open mind because you'll be surprised at which road you actually might end up going down. The submission process is long and arduous, but obviously well worth it. We had tremendous support from the Department.

Drew Radford:

Christine and Andrew Sebire certainly were patient and the investment is paying off faster than they ever expected. The starting point for them was an energy audit. These are conducted by people like Peter Clinnick, who's an energy consultant with Advanced Environmental Systems. They've conducted nearly 500 audits over the last 20 years or so. I was curious if the ultimate goal with this process was to get down to zero consumption from the grid?

Peter Clinnick:

While it's desirable to get down to a very low level, it's not always possible. We look at that and we say, "Well, where's the energy being wasted at this farm?" And in that, we start at the power pole and look at the quality of electricity that's coming into the site. That's called power factor. For a lot of people, the power factor is very poor, particularly if there's a high demand. For example, when all the dairies are running in a district, the power factor will be dropping back considerably. Things like pumps, et cetera, don't run very efficiently. So, it's hard on the pump motors, and it's also costing you more because you're actually drawing more power to make those things run.

Drew Radford:

How then do you assist farmers to utilize the information in the energy audit to prioritise and implement energy technologies on the farm?

Peter Clinnick:

It's not just about doing an energy audit and handing a report across to a farmer. They really have to understand and we have to understand, more importantly, what's financially feasible for these guys? What's practically feasible? Some people just don't have an understanding of computers, for instance, it's no good giving them an automated system that's, for instance, running their irrigation because these guys just won't come to grips with it. They won't use it. It'll sit on the shelf, so to speak. So, what we've got to do is make sure that we have a good understanding of what the farmer is capable of, financially and personally from a mode of operation, if you like, and then press ahead and put the suggestions in there in the report that he's going to be able to utilize or she's going to be able to utilize on farm.

Drew Radford:

If a farmer has made a choice about a type of energy technology they want to implement on farm, what's farmer then got to consider when selecting the technology provider and installer to make sure that they get the optimal outcome?

Peter Clinnick:

It's really important to speak with other people that have done similar exercises. For instance, if you're getting a new solar system, then talk to a few of your mates over the fence, but get several quotes and look at the specifications and see whether it's really meets your requirements. In fact, does it meet the Australian Standards?

Peter Clinnick:

The other thing is to look for reliability in the equipment, and obviously efficiency. Is there backup available? For instance, heat pumps were very popular 10 years ago, and a lot of dairy farmers had them installed, but no one would come and service them. And so that was a real weakness in the system. When I would go out there and suggest, "What about a heat pump?" I'd get a resistance from farmers because they only know about the bad experiences that have occurred, not the good experiences that are out there now with much more efficient heat pumps in the market and people to service them locally.

Peter Clinnick:

The other thing to look at is maintenance costs on an item and whether it's actually a monitoring app, for instance, to perhaps integrate with your irrigation system. There's a lot of different aspects to consider when you're looking at installing equipment.

Peter Clinnick:

One other thing is a warranty. There's different types of warranties, for instance, for solar panels. You can get a warranty on the actual equipment and there should be a warranty that covers the efficiency of the panels over time. Those sorts of things are what you need to look at and that's sometimes a little bit outside of what people want to do or are interested in doing when it comes to doing their homework.

Drew Radford:

Peter, there's certainly a lot to consider in terms of the type of equipment and also access to capital. I guess that comes down to a staged implementation approach for many, such as solar and battery systems. What does a farmer need to consider in their approach to implementation?

Peter Clinnick:

Yeah, well, staging projects is somewhat tricky. It's one of those things you want to avoid, if you can. It's better to take a full implementation approach and perhaps borrow the money from an organisation, like a Sustainable Australia Fund, who have specialty arrangements for people that want to put in, for example, solar panels, or want to put a variable speed drive on a pump. They will actually fund that exercise and they'll set up the repayments so that it matches the payback period.

Peter Clinnick:

Staging projects can be fraught with problems. The availability of the product down the track is sometimes an issue. Compatibility with similar products from another supplier can be an issue. Staging projects can create complications. What can happen is that you buy one item and it's not compatible, and you end up in the end purchasing a new item that will do the job for you, and you're really left with a stranded asset. So, staging projects, can do it. Adding on panels, for instance, for solar, but try and avoid it. Try and get the whole job done up front.

Drew Radford:

What would be your key piece of advice you'd give to farmers on undertaking their own energy journey as they implement energy technologies?

Peter Clinnick:

Drew, I'd be looking at what equipment is out there on the farm that's using a lot of power and running the longest hours. For example, your refrigeration equipment on a dairy is really working hard, maybe eight hours a day. You need to look at that equipment and say, "How old is it? How soon can I replace it? When can I afford to replace it?" But when you do replace it, replace it with something with high efficiency.

Peter Clinnick:

The other advice I would say is get the best-quality product that you possibly can because it might seem more costly to start with, but you get what you pay for. A good example is with pumps. Don't rush out and buy the cheapest pump. What you need to do is look at what the efficiency of the motor is, and you need to look at what the quality of product is. For example, I've seen pumps with bearings that are failing after two years, so it can be actually bad economics to invest in cheap products.

Drew Radford:

Peter Clinnick, energy consultant for Advanced Environmental Systems, thank you for joining us for this AgVic Talk podcast.

Peter Clinnick:

Been a real pleasure, Drew.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to AgVic Talk. For more episodes in this series, find us and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave a comment or rating and share this series with your friends and family. All information is accurate at the time of release. Contact Agriculture Victoria or your consultant before making any changes on farm. This podcast was developed by Agriculture Victoria, authorized by the Victorian Government, Melbourne.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to AgVic Talk. Keeping you up to date with information from Agriculture Victoria.

Drew Radford:

Just because it's technically possible, doesn't mean it's economically feasible. Those are the words of Adrian Roles, and for those that know him, they may be surprised by them because Adrian, who aside from being a farmer, is also an ag tech and precision ag consultant.

Drew Radford:

G'day, I'm Drew Radford, and arguably they are insightful words because Adrian's been through many ag tech learning curves over his 20 plus year career. Nonetheless, he remains passionate about ag tech and precision ag. To find out more, he joins us for this AgVic Talk podcast. Adrian, thanks for your time.

Adrian Roles:

You're welcome.

Drew Radford:

Adrian, we're going to focus on ag tech, but before we get to that, you and your family. Technology's not in your background, dust on your boots is, I understand. You're a farmer, aren't you?

Adrian Roles:

Yeah, first and foremost. I literally fell backwards into this ag tech space. We used to do a lot of contracting and I had a big client that wanted to go variable rate spreading back in the early days back in 2003, 2004. And I made the mistake saying, "Oh, we could definitely do that." And anyway, it's just continually evolved from those early days back then.

Drew Radford:

I like the description of falling into it backwards. So what do you run on the property?

Adrian Roles:

So we're a mixed enterprise. We've got a self replacing flock of merinos and then we just do mixed broad acre crops of wheat, barley, canolas and some pulses from time to time to keep the rotation going.

Drew Radford:

So you were doing a bit of contracting as well as that?

Adrian Roles:

We still do a bit of contracting, not as much as we used to. But back then I was bright eyed and bushy tailed and my age started with a two and not with a four as it does now, so I definitely did not appreciate the complexities and how hard it was going to be when I opened my big mouth and committed to it. And that's effectively how we've kind of gone into ag tech or fell into ag tech is because we just started off doing one job here or there. In the early days, we only had one client wanting to do it, to now basically up until last year when we sold some aspects of the contracting business, the spreading truck, basically 50 to 60% of our work was all variable rate.

Drew Radford:

That's quite a history. So you're in at the ground level for want of a better description. And those early days too, I would imagine a lot of the tech was difficult to get your head around. It's a lot more intuitive now.

Adrian Roles:

It is a lot more intuitive, in the early days when we first went variable rate and started doing data collection as well, because that's what we spun off the back of doing the variable rate, there was no help. And we basically had to learn on the run and there was a lot of late nights talking to people in Europe and America and Canada, trying to work out how all this stuff worked.

Adrian Roles:

And to give you an idea, when we first went variable rate on an old spreader truck we had, we had some light bars in the truck. So we had to upgrade to a Runix screen and Runix are no longer even a company anymore. They got bought out. And we we're talking to their engineers and they're like, "Yeah, yeah, we can go variable rate." But when you ask the question, "How?", they just look at you and scratch your head, so there was a lot of sleepless nights and late nights trying to work out which solanoid and valve bank would work with the harnesses. So it was very much trial by fire in the early days to now where we are at the stage where a lot of this is just straight from factory or manufactured, with all the new ISO systems in the modern tractors and it's just plug and play.

Adrian Roles:

So it's still not perfect and it still lets us down from time to time, but it is improved out of sight over the last 20 years of me being involved. And that's an important point to mention too, for anyone or any farmer out there that wants to start exploring this space, one of the key things to keep in mind when selecting your equipment is support, because it doesn't matter if it's the flashiest or fanciest piece of tech in the world, if it breaks down and you can't speak to someone to help you get it going again, it's not worth diddly squat. So yeah, there was a lot of challenges in the early days when there was no support.

Drew Radford:

Oh, I could imagine. That would be really bad for my hairline, for want of a better description. I would've lost a lot of hair over that and been very, very stressed. Just before we go any further, what does the term ag tech mean to you?

Adrian Roles:

Well, to touch on the first point, Drew, I had a lovely lush head of hair before I started ag tech and now it's pretty shiny, I freely admit. Whether that's genetics and age or ag tech. It's probably a combination of both. So ag tech to me is any form of technology that you use in your agronomic business. So to me, the best piece of ag tech that we have as farmers is actually what I'm using now to talk to you is the mobile phone. Because that lets us check weather, we can check our emails, we can do market reports, we can help with our marketing, we get our agronomic reports through all the apps and software that are now available to us in a modern farming system. Right through down to the stuff that's coming down the pipeline, which is autonomous tractors through to the AI (Artificial Intelligence).

Adrian Roles:

I mean, there's some really exciting stuff coming down out of South Australia. The SARDI guys over there with the AI project on soils. So to me it's a whole encompassing statement, but to me it's any form of new technology or digitization that we use in agriculture.

Drew Radford:

That's a great description and I would've never even thought of the phone as arguably one of the most powerful things that everybody has readily at their disposable, without even going through half the pain curves you've just described with a lot of the other tech.

Adrian Roles:

Well and that pain curve is something that... And this is to the ag tech suppliers and startups or anyone out there that's thinking of getting into this space as a provider. It's actually about understanding the pain curves and one of the things that really annoys me about some of the people out there at the moment is they're saying that farmers won't adopt technologies. Well, that's not true. If the pain points and there's a value proposition and it helps us farm better, we will adopt technology like no one's business. So look at the mobile phone, look at auto steer, auto section control. And even now, if it's a one that'll solve a problem, like the green on green with herbicide resistant weeds in crop, I think technologies like that are going to be adopted incredibly quickly by the agriculture and especially broad ag agriculture as a whole.

Drew Radford:

The pain curve is actually a really important point though, isn't it? Once upon a time in my game, I was willing to spend hours, days working out the latest bit of recording software and how I could integrate it and blah, blah, blah. I just want it to work now. I've got a lot of important foundation knowledge like you would have in my particular sphere, but that pain curve now will put me off pursuing it further.

Adrian Roles:

You and I are cut from the same cloth, Drew. Because I'll be honest, when we first started doing variable rates, we used to take the ECA out of an early genomics mach one. We'd have to run it through five pieces of software to get it into a format so we could put it into the truck to go variable rate spreading off ground truth data sets. There is no way you could trick me into doing that again.

Adrian Roles:

And exactly right, most farmers out there are time poor and as my business has evolved, I've become very time poor to the point now where I just want something that'll work, and this is one of the main problems that we have especially even the hardware space, with weather stations and moisture probes, is you'll put it in, you'll install it and then someone in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, wherever they're based, will have a problem. And then they just go, "Can you just go out there and do X, Y, Z to that piece of hardware?" But your days are already full and it might be a 30, 40 kilometers drive for some of these people who are listening now just to go and check it.

Adrian Roles:

So exactly, for farmers to adopt more of this stuff, we definitely need to have that whole plug and play and ground truthed and proven to work before most farmers will adopt it.

Drew Radford:

We're certainly getting in that space though, I mean, and that's why we're talking about it. That, yes, that's the downside for want of a better description, but you must be seeing so much out there that is actually working and bringing benefits. So what sort of ag tech do you regularly use and what are some of their benefits?

Adrian Roles:

Well, exactly. There is way more upside to this space. To me, one of the things that we use every day, as I mentioned before, is our mobile phones and tablet devices. But we have weather stations, we have soil probes, and admittedly because we're a rain fed system, there's only certain times of the year when I want to actually access that type of data set to make an informed input decision. So we're seeing big benefits by having those data sets, ground truthed soil maps, making the decision on where it should go and understanding the yield potential of each zone from data sets such as yield monitoring to protein monitors. And I must admit for the grain growers out there, there are great two data sets to combine together that actually understand and validate the decisions made through the season.

Adrian Roles:

So there's multiple data sets there and equipment that's doing that for us through our livestock enterprise, where we're now actually, to me, I think there's huge gains to be using a lot of this technology in livestock. For example, in our operation, we've had EID tags in our sheep now for almost 12 years and we're a commercial, not a stud breeder. The one example that proved the value for EIDs hands down in our operation was we were twinning and singles before we had the EID tags in there. So we couldn't really record which was a twin or a single, but once we put the EID tags in there, we're getting those records back. And what we actually found was due to our poor management practices, so it wasn't on the girls, it was actually on us.

Adrian Roles:

But what was happening was we have these ewes that were raising twins one year and then the second year they weren't getting back into lamb, so we're actually starting to cull those genetics. So what we did was we now run them as the twin and single mobs based off the EID tags after shearing and we keep them separate and we supplementary feed the twinners. And what we'd actually found was that most of those twinners will either go back into giving us twins again, or at least having a single lamb and then in the following year will give us a twin again the following year.

Adrian Roles:

So because we couldn't record that, we couldn't measure it, we couldn't manage it. So what we're actually doing is we're actually culling unknowingly some of our best reproductive genetics out of the flock. So there's an example of how these technologies and very simple application of them has actually resulted us in increasing our profitability.

Drew Radford:

Adrian, what about some of the other farmers that you work with? You go in and help them apply ag tech. You've got a couple of examples where you've seen it go in and really help out and solve some problems.

Adrian Roles:

Yeah, so we've helped many people over the years and it's funny. You can make it as complex or as simple as you want. So we had an elderly gentleman who's now since passed, but he was based down towards Gundagai and if you asked him, he would say he wasn't really doing anything. But in my opinion, he was leading the field in this and he really had an old combine, he was a sheep grazier first and foremost with a few cows, but he used to do some cropping and he had some flats and he knew that they performed differently from the years of experience of doing it. And so we went down and mapped it for him. We ground truthed it. We came up with some different productivity zones. And anyway, Reg would get there and literally just put drums out and he would change his seeding rate and fertilizer rate for each zone and he'd sow them round and round. So that's an example of keeping it very simple.

Adrian Roles:

To the point where we've worked with some growers who have adopted everything under the sun, because they tend to have an ag technology addiction like myself. And they will go right down the path of making many zones in the paddock. You'd come back and really starting to analyze and drill down into their driving of what's their profitability. And quite often what happens with most of those farmers when they go down that path, they focus on the agronomics, on how they can actually grow the most crop. Whereas where I think I've actually been able to help a lot of these people is to actually start to understand that it's about dollars per hectare, per 100 mm of rain or megaliter, because we've also done some stuff in the irrigation as well.

Adrian Roles:

So it's actually about pivoting that focus of growing the crop to actually understanding the profitability spatially across your paddocks. There'll be some parts of the paddocks that doesn't matter what you do, they're going to be capped yield because of some soil constraint that is too expensive or you cannot fix. So it's about designing your program, and this is for livestock or trees. And I shouldn't really talk about horticulture because I've dabbled in that space too. But I haven't come across any industry in agriculture where if you actually take the focus from an agronomic system into a profitability structure, you can actually use these technologies as a real driver or understanding of the profit drivers in your business to actually maximize your returns in your business. So that's kind of, I think, where our business has evolved to.

Drew Radford:

And when you describe it like that too, Adrian, I'm sitting there trying to contemplate being a farmer and all the responsibilities of running my business against this avalanche of data and going well, "I'm not a technologist. I'm not a data analyst." I would imagine that's where you really need that help to say, "Well, this is what that all actually means and this is how we can apply it."

Adrian Roles:

That's one of the problems that we've had is, one we referenced earlier in this conversation, was you need support. But it also needs to be support from most aspects of the industry. So one of the things that I really am excited, especially down in Victoria that's happening, it's like a free plug to Longerenong College here but they're actually designing a agronomic digital program to actually help agronomists get up to speed in these technologies. Because to be honest, it's a bit of a generational change coming through the agronomic as well as the farming, which is driving a lot of the adoption of ag tech. It's what I call the PlayStation farmers, the farmers that grew up having a PlayStation in their bedroom are not afraid of all these technologies. And it's the same with the agronomist, so we need to actually build the support industry around as we roll out this ag tech across the industry, so there's programs out there where we're actually trying to build that support network.

Adrian Roles:

Now the other thing with that is too is generally the best data set a farmer has, is the one between their ears. And to any young farmers out there listening, don't make the mistake that I did in my early career of not listening to my father and my grandfather. I had all these wild and wonderful ideas and I'd say, "Oh, but this is what the data set says and we have to do it." And dad would say, "No, no. It's elevation aspect. The reason why this is it never performs." Whatever. It's because they've farmed that country for so many years, they actually understand how it performs. So the best data set a farmer has is actually one between their ears. So if it doesn't make sense, if someone like me comes on farm and presents you with the data set and said, "This is what the data set says." And it doesn't make sense for your understanding, your knowledge of your crops, your paddocks, your environment, it's probably not the right decision. It's actually about running it back through the filter between your ears quite often to make a good informed decision.

Drew Radford:

That sounds like very sage advice. And you've also got a vested interest in the data side of it because I understand you're on the National Farmers Federation Data Working Group.

Adrian Roles:

Yeah, I am. I'm the New South Wales farmers representative on the working group and I've been a bit passionate about the whole data piece for a while. And let me first say this, Drew, before we go down this rabbit warren. There is actually way more upside from the data set and sharing the data set between entities that will help a farmer. But the thing is, the farmer has to be rewarded for their data set. So the whole idea that... A rather large company recently at a conference compared some Australian farmers to luddites and book burners because they wouldn't share their data with them.

Adrian Roles:

Well, the reason why the farmer won't share their data with them is because there's no guarantees in place, so that that data won't be used against them down the track. But also too, that data to them is effectively a commodity. Now I don't know about you, Drew, you seem like a good guy, but I'm not going to go and give you 10 ton of wheat for free.

Drew Radford:

No.

Adrian Roles:

So the data needs to be thought of in the same spec, so now that doesn't mean that money has to change hands to access data, but there has to be a value proposition to access the data. And that might be the case of, I don't know, of an input company where they guarantee supply or give you priority access to chemicals if you share your data set with them. Maybe if it was the bank, you might get 25 basis points off your loan. Maybe if it was with the insurance company, you might get access to other products because they're now able to model your risk better than they can someone else to reduce your cross subsidization of a worse farmer. So farmers need to be rewarded for that.

Adrian Roles:

Saying that, there has been cases where data has been used against farmers, mainly overseas, and I do not know of any in Australia at all where farmers have had their data shared unknowingly. These companies then entered into individual price negotiated contracts, which basically then capped the farmer's ability to generate a return for their product. So we have to be aware and we need to put safeguards in places for that. And I would encourage anyone if they're interested in that to go and actually read some of the work done by Leanne Wiseman, who's a professor, and she actually has some good things that are simple and easy to understand.

Adrian Roles:

And basically it's about just making sure that the contracts are fair and equitable to everyone. Because to me, we have a one off opportunity to actually make sure that the data sets are used for the right purposes and it's a one off chance where everyone in the industry can win by this, and even the Australian population as whole can win because it'll improve our GDP out of agriculture, everything else, traceability. The value off the back of these data sets is huge if we do it right.

Drew Radford:

It sounds like a rapidly evolving space and also a space which you need to act quickly in, Adrian. One last thing. When it comes to ag tech, what's the one lasting thought you'd like to leave those listening to this with?

Adrian Roles:

For the farmers out there, it's really fun to be on the leading edge. Don't be on the bleeding edge. I've been there. It's not that fun. So when you're assessing technologies, go for stuff that's proven or that you actually see has a value case proposition for you, that's going to make you some money.

Adrian Roles:

And the last thing is, don't be afraid to dip your toes in it, especially to the older generation out there. Because quite often everyone gets scared of touching their screens or the computers. You can't break them. If you do break them, just hit reset, and you're ready to go again. And it's the same with your data sets. So just start small and work your way into it. It's a lot of fun.

Drew Radford:

Sounds like great advice, Adrian, and also coming from somebody with a fairly broad range of experience from being a farmer, ag tech and precision ag consultant and also on the National Farmer's Federation Farm Data Working Group.

Drew Radford:

Adrian Roles, it's been a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for your time and joining me for this AgVic Talk podcast.

Adrian Roles:

No, thank you, Drew. I enjoyed it. Talk soon.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to AgVic Talk. For more episodes in this series, find us and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. We would love to hear your feedback, so please leave a comment or rating and share this series with your friends and family. All information is accurate at the time of release. Contact Agriculture Victoria or your consultant before making any changes on farm.

Speaker 1:

This podcast was developed by Agriculture Victoria, authorized by the Victorian Government, Melbourne.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to AgVic Talk, keeping you up to date with information from Agriculture Victoria.

Drew Radford:

For some farmers, electricity to power things like pumps is one of their biggest costs. However, with careful planning and investment, it can also be a significant way to add back to the bottom line.

Drew Radford:

G'day. I'm Drew Radford, and the savings are usually accompanied by a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Jonathan Chislet is business and nursery manager at Chislet Farms. He saw the energy costs of their enterprise rising considerably and decided to do something about it. To discuss what that was, he joins us for this AgVic Talk podcast. Jonathan, thanks for your time.

Jonathan Chislet:

No worries.

Drew Radford:

Jonathan, I understand your grandfather came to that part of the world quite some time ago and worked very hard in the process.

Jonathan Chislet:

Yeah, my grandfather and his brothers had a sawmill operation in Boundary Bend. I think at some stage in the 1950s, he moved out to Kenley and started a citrus farm.

Drew Radford:

Citrus farm. But you do a lot more than just growing a few navels and other oranges at the moment. Describe the size of the operation, what goes on now.

Jonathan Chislet:

My grandfather, Norm, established about 50 acres of citrus, but since then the business has grown considerably and diversified into other horticultural products as well. So citrus is still our main product, but we do avocados and pistachios as well. And as you mentioned, I think in the introduction, I look after the nursery and some of the business side of things. And in the nursery, we produce similar commodities, so avocado trees, citrus trees and pistachios.

Drew Radford:

It's quite a big operation, Jonathan. Over what sort of area and how many people have you got working on that?

Jonathan Chislet:

In terms of area we might have about four or 500 hectares, either planted or under development, across four or five sites. The nursery itself is situated at Kenley, and that's probably the major employer, I guess, or has the biggest labor requirement. During the peak times we might have about 80 employees and maybe another 20 or 30, 40 contractors as well.

Drew Radford:

Jonathan, that's a large operation to say the least. And I'm guessing the thing that enables you to be there and do that is access to water.

Jonathan Chislet:

Yeah, no, that's right. It is. Yeah. Yep.

Drew Radford:

And that access to the water though, that comes with a big cost in terms of pumping I'd assume.

Jonathan Chislet:

Yep. No, you're right there. It is quite expensive to extract the water from the river in terms of electricity. It's one of our bigger costs.

Drew Radford:

I'd imagine in recent years you would've seen those costs rising. Is that what motivated you to start looking at, okay, well, we need to change things?

Jonathan Chislet:

Yeah, no, we're always looking at options to try and reduce input costs. So yeah, we started looking at options around how to tackle that, probably four years ago. And we looked at making sure we were pumping as efficiently as we could and making sure we had soft starters and VFDs on all our pumps. Obviously trying to run them when the power was cheapest. And from there, we started exploring options around solar, and how we could reduce our costs and our consumption of electricity that way.

Drew Radford:

You used a couple of terms there, soft starters and VFDs. For those unfamiliar, what are those?

Jonathan Chislet:

They're drives on the motors, which make sure your motors are running efficiently. They limit startup electricity usage and making sure your pumps are running as efficiently as they can be.

Drew Radford:

In your business, I imagine you've got to be expert across a lot of areas. You're dealing with a lot of things, but energy is probably not the usual remit for a primary producer. So did you turn to expert advice?

Jonathan Chislet:

I guess we did in a way. We probably started having discussions just with our electrician who does all our work, and we discussed various ideas and options on how to reduce our pumping costs. And one thing led to another and we started looking towards solar maybe four years ago.

Drew Radford:

In this process, did you get an energy audit done?

Jonathan Chislet:

Yeah, we did. Like a lot of farmers, you get plenty of cold calls and people offering different options and ideas around solar. So we started investigating that, and I think in maybe late 2018 or 2019, there was some funding became available through the Victorian government. And one of the prerequisites I think to qualify for that funding was to have an audit done. We had an audit completed, I think, in 2020 as a part of that program.

Drew Radford:

And that audit process, were there any surprising results that you got out of that?

Jonathan Chislet:

Oh, to be honest, not really. We'd looked at that whole part of the business in a lot of detail with our electrician prior to that audit. So the results of the audit were probably pretty much in line with what we were already thinking at the time.

Drew Radford:

Sounds like you've got a fortunate relationship there with an electrician who has got pretty good insight in that space.

Jonathan Chislet:

Yeah. Yep.

Drew Radford:

He recommended then, things like the variable drives and the soft startups?

Jonathan Chislet:

Yes. Yep. Yep.

Drew Radford:

So how's it benefited your business now?

Jonathan Chislet:

We've had three solar systems installed on three separate pumping sites, probably for the best part of 10 months now. And it's resulted in a big reduction in how much electricity we're consuming, particularly during the peak pumping periods. On rough numbers, we might have cut our electricity consumption by up to 50, 55%.

Drew Radford:

That's a significant saving, Jonathan. What sort of return on investment period are you looking at and how big are those solar farms?

Jonathan Chislet:

I think we put in 280 kilowatts across three sites. So yeah, a couple of sites with a hundred kilowatts and one at 80. Yeah, look, we haven't done a lot of analysis on the payback side of it, but we think it'll have paid for itself, well and truly, in four or five years time.

Drew Radford:

That's quite a quick return on investment really, isn't it? And money in your pocket in four or five years time.

Jonathan Chislet:

Yeah, for us, it made sense to go ahead and do it. One of our bigger costs were always having to pump, and a lot of times during the middle of the day. It just seemed like a really neat solution for us to go ahead and put some solar in and try and offset some of those costs.

Drew Radford:

Jonathan, would there be any key bits of advice that you give to other farmers, if they're thinking about embarking on an energy journey?

Jonathan Chislet:

I've spoken to a lot of people about our project, and a lot of people you speak to are still in the early phase, I guess, of considering whether they do something or they don't. That was one of our key decisions that we made early on, was that we did want to do something. Four or five years ago when we started looking at it, you think of what the power price was then compared to what it is now, so all the assumptions we made four or five years ago were very conservative in today's electricity market. So I think once you've made a decision to do something, it's a matter of doing some research and comparing different options of different providers, different ways of financing things and just trying to navigate through all those options till you get your result.

Drew Radford:

It sounds like you were very lucky that you had somebody in terms of your electrician advising you along the way.

Jonathan Chislet:

Yeah, no, that's crucial. It's quite a complex process. There's a lot of terminology that we weren't familiar with initially. So you really need someone to decipher that for you and give you some advice, independent advice, of course, otherwise you can get a bit lost, I think.

Drew Radford:

Such a large operation, Jonathan Chislet had access to good energy advice through a strong relationship with a well informed electrician. For those not in that situation, a starting point may be an energy audit with a person like Mark Barber, principal energy consultant with Northmore Gordon. It's a role that's involved agricultural energy investment plan assessments.

Mark Barber:

We work in a broad range of areas, but farming is certainly a big part of our focus. We've completed something like 200 energy audits on Victorian dairy farms in recent times. So it's been a fairly large focus for us and for good reason. I mean, the carbon footprint and energy footprint of the food supply chain is fairly significant in the scheme of things and justifies a strong focus to address the challenge of reducing that footprint.

Drew Radford:

You mentioned there, the carbon footprint, is that part of the equation for the primary producers you're dealing with, or is it really just trying to get the cost down or is it a suite of things they're aiming to achieve?

Mark Barber:

It's really both. I mean, the primary motive is primarily about energy efficiency and reducing energy consumption and energy costs. But energy consumption is closely coupled with greenhouse footprint, greenhouse emissions, and so that's a natural part of the benefit of doing an energy audit is identifying the opportunity to reduce carbon footprint as well.

Drew Radford:

Mark, for a dairy operation, what sort of percentage of their costs should energy be?

Mark Barber:

Almost every farm we audit, there's an opportunity to reduce energy use. In the order of five to 25% of their energy costs can be reduced in a cost effective and viable manner. It's also interesting to note that what we've observed is the energy intensity for harvesting of milk varies a lot from farm to farm by about a factor of three. And it's measured as kilowatt hours per litre of milk harvested. And surprisingly, there's a huge variation from farm to farm, which indicates a significant room for improvement for many farms.

Drew Radford:

Mark, that's really quite a considerable variation and also a considerable opportunity in terms of savings.

Mark Barber:

Absolutely. And, and often these opportunities for improvement are low cost or no cost. And there's often no downside, usually no downside to make these improvements.

Drew Radford:

Okay. Well, in terms of these opportunities, Mark, what steps can a farmer take to identify energy opportunities in their business?

Mark Barber:

Well, I think a good place to start is to develop a mindset of paying close attention to energy usage and getting in the habit of monitoring energy use and dive into the detail, understand where the energy's being used, how it's being used when it's being used and treat that as an important business metric to track over time.

Drew Radford:

Mark, I imagine there's other things too, that a farmer should start looking over the fence for want of a better description, and seeing what's going on elsewhere.

Mark Barber:

Yeah. That's really important, Drew, really important to talk to peers in the industry and identify what else is happening, what other farmers are doing in this space. I think measurement's really important, measuring energy intensity. If I can go back to dairy farms again, we highly recommend that farmers get in the habit of measuring and tracking the kilowatt hours used per litre of milk harvested, and track that over time, and compare that with other farms in the same sector. There's an old adage that you can't manage what you don't measure. And energy is one of those, certainly fits into that category.

Drew Radford:

That sounds like a really fundamental metric, kilowatt hours per litre of milk. So if you're going to go down the path of an energy audit, what's the process of completing an energy audit?

Mark Barber:

Okay. So an energy audit, ideally would be conducted in alignment with the Australian and New Zealand Standard 3598, which is the standard we reference when we conduct our audits. The heart of an audit is the on-farm inspection and assessment. There's no doubt about that. But prior to visiting a farm, we do need to gather and analyse as much information related to energy use as possible. When we're working with a farmer, we request a fair bit of detail. We like to get our hands on two years' worth of energy bills and energy usage data from their meters. So by the time we get to farm, we've already had a good understanding about their operation and how they're using energy and when they're using energy. And then during the farm inspection, we'll study operations in detail, analyse where and how energy is used, and identify opportunities for improvement.

Drew Radford:

Mark, at the start there, you mentioned an Australia and New Zealand Standard. That sounds like the first tick in a box that anybody should be checking to see that's there if they're engaging an auditor.

Mark Barber:

That's right, Drew. I mean, that's a very well developed methodology, that's laid out quite clearly, and it's important to make sure that any auditor is referencing that in their process.

Drew Radford:

If it's a very well laid out methodology, what information does the audit tell the farmer about the energy use on their farm?

Mark Barber:

The outcome of the whole process is a detailed report that we provide, that includes things like a detailed energy use breakdown, so that there's absolute clarity around where energy is used, when it's used and how it's used, which pieces of equipment are using the most amount of energy. The report includes calculations on the difference in operating costs of current versus best practice. Also includes a list of any improvement opportunities that have been developed, description of those, estimates of energy and carbon savings, and preliminary capital costings. And as part of that, we would recommend sizing of equipment, such as pumps, variable speed drives, solar systems, et cetera, and also provides some practical next steps. We would also identify any relevant incentive schemes, government incentive schemes, and quantify the potential benefits available from those schemes.

Drew Radford:

You mentioned there, you identify opportunities. What are some of the common ones that you do identify?

Mark Barber:

That's a good question. So it varies from farm type to farm type, of course. So if I talk about poultry farms, very common opportunity there is the upgrade of ventilation fans and fan motors and ventilation controls. What we commonly find is there's a high dependence on ventilation for good reason, but often those fans are old technology and can be upgraded to more modern, more efficient fans. Not just more efficient, but also offer the ability to control the speed and regulate the airflow to suit the needs of the shed, depending on the stage of bird growth, and depending on ambient temperature. And slowing down fan motors and pump motors can have a very significant impact on energy bills.

Mark Barber:

In the case of vineyards, it's all about irrigation, variable speed drives on pumps, moisture sensors in the field to control water supply, et cetera. In fact, pumping systems really applies across most farms. Part of our service is to review existing pump systems, and confirm that the pump and the motor are correctly sized and performing as they're meant to. We commonly find pumps are no longer performing as they should, or they've been oversized or undersized, and these all result in poor efficiency.

Mark Barber:

In the case of dairies, very common opportunity there is to improve the milk pre-cooler, plate cooler, which is the first step in the cooling process. We commonly find that they're not performing correctly, and the good news is that they can typically be readily rectified.

Drew Radford:

Mark, you mentioned variable speed drives. Not so long ago, an electric motor was either on or off. For saving power, how important is having motors that can vary their output?

Mark Barber:

The principle behind saving energy through variable speed drives is really interesting. The key point being that the savings are not proportional to the reduction in speed. So a small reduction in RPM of a motor, whether it be a vacuum pump or a water pump, for example, or a fan, results in quite significant savings. It's a non-linear relationship. And so a small reduction in speed results in a large saving of energy. And it's very common on farms and in industry to see systems that are running too fast or commonly, common place is to have the flow rate of a system regulated with a control valve. It's a bit like driving a car with your foot flat on the accelerator and regulating the speed with the brake. A more efficient and smarter way to control a pumping system is to have a variable speed on the motor and change the speed through the RPM of the motor to meet the needs of the system.

Drew Radford:

Mark, energy auditors, you work to A/NZ Standards, and you identify opportunities. Does that then involve the next step of actually supplying equipment?

Mark Barber:

It's really important to note that energy auditors don't sell equipment. Our interest is in making sure that any equipment that gets chosen or specified, is sized correctly and chosen correctly to suit the purpose. A really good example is solar PV. Part of our role is to make sure that the system size that's recommended is actually right size to suit the farm's needs, and optimised to maximize return on investment.

Drew Radford:

Mark, for those listening to this, what last thought would you like to leave them with, if they're contemplating getting an energy audit done?

Mark Barber:

Well, of the 175 farms or so that we've audited, we've not found any cases where there's no room for improvement. That's an important point. Secondly, many of those opportunities don't require capital. They require very little cost to rectify. In many cases, it's a simple change to operations and control point settings and so on. It's also worth noting, I think, a really important point is that unlike other forms of waste, energy waste is not visible. If water is leaking from a tank or waste is building up in a corner, it's quite visible, but energy can be wasted without you knowing. Utilising the skills and the eyes of a specialist energy auditor, to uncover and bring those opportunities to the surface, is really important.

Drew Radford:

Mark Barber, that's a great point to finish on. Those independent eyes, those qualified eyes to give somebody the perspective they need to be able to make a decision about what energy changes and investments they need to make. Mark Barber, principal energy consultant for Northmore Gordon, thank you for taking the time and joining us for this AgVic Talk podcast.

Mark Barber:

You're most welcome, Drew.

Speaker 5:

Thank you for listening to AgVic Talk. For more episodes in this series, find us and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. We would love to hear your feedback, so please leave a comment or rating and share this series with your friends and family. All information is accurate at the time of release. Contact Agriculture Victoria or your consultant before making any changes on farm. This podcast was developed by Agriculture Victoria, authorized by the Victorian government, Melbourne.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to AgVic Talk, keeping you up to date with information from Agriculture Victoria.

Drew Radford:

Nothing beats a new gadget. However, for a time-pressed farmer, a new bit of technology is more than a shiny gizmo with flashing lights. It's an investment to solve a problem, which means it's a business decision that requires planning. G'day. I'm Drew Radford, and a person who understands AgTech planning is Mark Sloan. And he joins us now for this Ag Vic Talk podcast. Mark, thanks for your time.

Mark Sloan:

Thanks for having me, Drew. I'm yeah, looking forward to it.

Drew Radford:

Mark, first off, let's start with the definition. What does the term AgTech mean to you?

Mark Sloan:

Yeah, really good question, Drew. And I think that's something that the industry is still working out itself. I guess if you think of a Venn diagram, there's overlapping areas between AgTech and digital agriculture, and now there's even this term AgriTech, which has become more and more and more popular. But for me, AgTech really is technology that's farm specific or primary producer specific technology that isn't used in other industries, I guess. So you might think of an Excel spreadsheet. Sure, you can use that for farming purposes, but it's not really specific to agriculture, so I wouldn't classify that as AgTech. Whereas a variable rate spreader, for sure, that's technology that's only used in agriculture. So that's how I define AgTech.

Drew Radford:

Where did your interest in AgTech come from, Mark?

Mark Sloan:

Yeah, so I moved to the country after living in Melbourne for a period of time. My wife's family farmed in central Victoria. So I moved to the country in 2011 and yeah, got an opportunity with a company doing remote sensing, creating NDVI maps, using satellite technology. And I guess that's really where my interest in agriculture and technology started. And yeah, I've been very fortunate to have a couple of roles since then that have built on that interest I have in AgTech and my experiences in the industry.

Drew Radford:

To you, what are the key benefits of AgTech, or what problems do you think it can help farmers solve? And that's a broad question too, Mark, I do appreciate that.

Mark Sloan:

Yeah, it is. It is very broad, but with my experience previously with Agriculture Victoria, helping roll out their Internet of Things trial, there are many different aspects to AgTech that people need to consider. You can't look at AgTech as just being a money making solution. There's really other aspects that you need to consider as well. Some of the big things that we saw through the Internet of Things trial was the ability for AgTech to give people more time to multitask, to even save money using technology applications. Also peace of mind with security applications. So when people want to go away for a break in summer, they've got maybe some AgTech on farm that can notify them when people are on their premises. So there's really a wide range of positives to AgTech that people have found in my experience with the Internet of Things trial.

Drew Radford:

Well, you use that term there, another term that people may not be familiar with, Internet of Things. What does that really mean?

Mark Sloan:

That's really just connected devices, devices that are connected to the internet. So whether that's through a WiFi connection or through a 4G SIM card or a LoRa network, it's a device that can send and or receive information from the cloud.

Drew Radford:

That can be such a broad range of things. I've gone down the path in my own home where I can tell the house to turn on lights or order food or do whatever. It can be such a wide range of things, to your header being able to report back to the manufacturer saying there's an issue.

Mark Sloan:

No, that's exactly. That's spot on. And also, a lot of precision ag providers are also sending data to machinery remotely as well. So they're sending prescription maps for spreading purposes, or collecting protein data from a header in real time. Those sorts of applications are really beneficial as well.

Drew Radford:

It's such a big and broad area, Mark. What advice would you give to farmers just starting out in their AgTech journey?

Mark Sloan:

Yeah, really good question, and I think that's what's been holding a lot of people back from dipping their toes in the AgTech space. And I think you need to treat your AgTech investment like any other investment, really. You need to be really clear on the goals on what you want to achieve or what you want the technology to do for your farm business. I think that's really important.

Mark Sloan:

One of the things we found through the Internet of Things trial was word of mouth was really strong. So maybe speak to your neighbors or speak to the grower associations or groups that you're involved with and ask your neighbors what sort of technology they're interested in, their views, they've heard about. Then follow that up with your own research. You need to make sure it's going to be fit for purpose for your particular farm business.

Mark Sloan:

You also really need to check the suppliers, the technology providers. It's like purchasing a car. You're not going to go and buy a car off a bloke on the street corner, and you wouldn't go and buy a thousand dollar piece of AgTech without doing proper due diligence on it. I think that's really important. And that's not just due diligence on the product, but also the after sale support. I think that's really an important area that farmers do need to consider, and something that the industry needs to work on as well. Over, I guess, the last 10 or 15 years, there's been lots of these AgTech startups come on the scene, and not all of them stay, which has also been detrimental to, I guess, the growth of AgTech uptake.

Mark Sloan:

There's quite a few different aspects, I guess, to getting involved with AgTech, but they're the main ones I think that you'd need to keep in the back of your mind before you actually put your hand in your pocket.

Drew Radford:

Well, we want to drill down a little bit further into developing an AgTech plan. It sounds to me what you're saying, talk to your neighbor. A lot of this sounds like demystifying it. Way back to the time of the stump-jump plough through to auto steer, they've all been new technologies that have come on board and spread through word of mouth. So is it about demystifying?

Mark Sloan:

Oh, most definitely. Most definitely. And not just demystifying, but I think that's the role for the AgTech industry itself to play a part in as well, is making the technology accessible. Sometimes farmers will get caught up in the language that the AgTech providers use. And I think that's something that also needs to be addressed in a wider sense, as well as technology providers being able to explain at a farmer level, what their product does, how to problem solve with it, the benefits they can get from it. So I think that whole idea about making, not just a language that people use when discussing technology accessible, but making the technology itself accessible.

Drew Radford:

Well, Mark, a moment ago, I mentioned an AgTech plan. What is an AgTech plan and why should farmers develop one?

Mark Sloan:

Yeah, look, an AgTech plan is really just a step by step process that you can follow to make sure you're covering off on everything you need to consider before making your investment in technology. And I think it's really beneficial because it helps to clarify all those different components and making sure that you don't leave anything out. There isn't questions that you haven't asked before purchasing a piece of technology.

Drew Radford:

You mentioned a pitfall or two, earlier, in terms of make sure that you're able to be supported. Is there any other pitfalls farmers should be aware of and how should they go about avoiding them in the process of developing a plan?

Mark Sloan:

The main areas that I think farmers should consider when developing a plan, are making sure that the product's fit for purpose. So you clarify firstly, what the problem is and what the pain point is that you're having on farm. You investigate a range of solutions that you think may address that. And then you start drilling down on the sort of data that you're going to collect. If you are going to choose a product, that's collecting data, the sort of data you're going to collect, the decisions that you can make with that data.

Mark Sloan:

You also really need to consider the connectivity. So what type of connectivity might be required for that device and the ongoing and startup costs associated with that device, as well as the ongoing cost that might be associated with accessing your data. So for instance, you might purchase a piece of technology for X amount of dollars, but you need to be aware that there will be an ongoing cost to access your data. And sometimes that's rolled in with the ongoing cost of accessing your connectivity too.

Mark Sloan:

So they're the main things that I think people maybe haven't paid as much attention to in the past. And they do become a bit dissatisfied when they start receiving an annual bill for just accessing their data. But one of the things, again, we found from the Internet of Things show is that farmers are becoming more and more aware that is just part of a subscription-based service, that there will be ongoing costs. And those costs are put towards maintaining the reliability of the data as well as the reliability of your connectivity.

Mark Sloan:

But yeah, you need to also consider the types of decisions that you're going to make with that data. And sometimes it's good just to make a data plan as well, so you can break down the data that you're collecting through the technology, and all the different types of decisions you can make with the different components to that data.

Drew Radford:

That's such a crucial part, connectivity, and I've interviewed pastoralists, who've actually spent considerable amount of money putting in their own networks in remote locations because they value that data so much in terms of the benefits that it brings to them. But connectivity is such a crucial component.

Mark Sloan:

No, for sure. And that's something that the industry's really working hard on solving, and there is a range of different connectivity types out there at the moment. Some of them not fit for all farming scenarios. So for instance, over a long range, you may go for a LoRa solution where there's not really a good mobile phone coverage. If you've got a relatively flat patch of land with a tower somewhere near, you might go for a 4G SIM connectivity solution. Whereas, in a horticulture setting, you could go for a WiFi solution that could be punched out over a 10 acre block quite effectively.

Mark Sloan:

So again, you really do need to do the research, and it's very difficult because there are different products on the market. They might not all have the ability to use a range of different connectivity types. So I've seen farmers with multiple antennas on the roof of their homes, all punching out a different type of connectivity to collect data from devices that only work off of a selected type of connectivity. So there is a real lot of research that you need to put into that as well. I mean, ideally it'd be great if everything was one type of connectivity, but that's just really not the case. And it does really depend on your business and your use case as well.

Drew Radford:

Well, in regards to your business and your use case, what are those key elements in terms of that plan that they should cover? I mean, first of all, why are you doing it? And what am I going to gain, would probably be the first question I'd ask.

Mark Sloan:

No, and that's exactly right. And just through the trial, we saw a lot of farmers just dipping their toes into technology with weather stations and soil moisture probes, just getting a feel for the technology and the data they're collecting and the ease of use. But yeah, they're relatively low hanging fruit if you like, in terms of AgTech, but they're still really clever bits of AgTech that can really inform your decision making. We also had farmers installing inversion towers, which is really important in a broad acre farming scenario. A really good point, Drew, is that you do need to really clarify what it is you expect to get from the technology and what the pain point is that you're hoping to address as well.

Drew Radford:

It's such a big area. What resources are available to help farmers develop an AgTech plan?

Mark Sloan:

Yeah, really good question. I know Agriculture Victoria has an eLearn module online at the moment that talks you through step by step, how to create your own AgTech plan. And that involves looking at connectivity and data and decision making. Also has a few lessons in there around breaking down the language around AgTech, helping people become more comfortable with some of the terminology used, when they might discuss AgTech with a technology provider. That's a really good resource that I'd encourage people to have a look at. And that's through the Agriculture Victoria learning management system. There's also AgTech Finder, which I find is a really good tool and it helps you filter through farming type, pain point, whether it's water usage or weather data collection. So that's a really good tool as well.

Mark Sloan:

Can't underestimate the benefit of going along to a field day and just asking questions as well. I think that's really important. And this again, it's like buying a car, you don't have to buy something off the first person you speak to. You can just ask a couple of questions and grab a brochure and have a read and look at their pricing and look at the data and get a feel for the business itself and whether or not it's somebody you'd make a large purchase off of.

Drew Radford:

Mark, some really wise advice there. I do get caught up with, sometimes the flashing lights and the excitement that goes around it. But really sage advice to step back, take a bit of a breath and think about where you're actually going with your AgTech plan. Mark Sloan, thank you for taking the time and joining us in the AgVic Talk studio today.

Mark Sloan:

Thanks very much for the opportunity, Drew and yeah, thank you.

Speaker 4:

Thank you for listening to AgVic Talk. For more episodes in this series, find us and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. We would love to hear your feedback, so please leave a comment or rating and share this series with your friends and family.

All information is accurate at the time of release. Contact Agriculture Victoria, or your consultant, before making any changes on farm.

This podcast was developed by Agriculture Victoria, authorized by the Victorian government Melbourne.

Introduction:

Welcome to AgVic Talk, keeping you up to date with information from Agriculture Victoria.

Drew Radford:

Not so long ago, when a farmer talked about harvesting, it had nothing to do with data. That, though, has changed dramatically in recent years. G'day, I'm Drew Radford, and farming operations these days produce copious amounts of data, ranging from yield and moisture information, right through to how the gearbox on a tractor is performing. AgTech and the amount of data it produces can be daunting. However, a person who decided to tackle it head on and learn to utilize it better is Jonathan Dyer. When he finished school, he left the family farm to do an information technology degree. But to his surprise, years later, he ended up back on the farm, applying those skills. To find out more, he joins us for this AgVic Talk podcast. Jonathan, thanks for your time.

Jonathan Dyer:

Thanks, Drew, for having me.

Drew Radford:

Jonathan, you're a past Nuffield scholar and you currently farm in the northwest of Victoria. Where did your interest in AgTech begin?

Jonathan Dyer:

Well, I've always, since a kid, I've had interest in computers and the internet. Always had that interest, and I guess followed that when I left school, instead of doing anything farming related. But then yeah, it's funny how your interests in stuff change over time, isn't it? And after working as a web developer for a couple of years, decided to give farming a go. But I guess obviously retained my interest in technology and sort of, when I came back to the farm, was going to try and work out what was useful to us as farmers.

Drew Radford:

I reckon that's a really interesting and powerful skill mix. I've heard somebody else describe it as the Xbox generation coming back on the farm.

Jonathan Dyer:

It's really bizarre. I have that same thought to myself every now and then when I'm on the tractor or the sprayer. And then I look down at the joystick, which is full of buttons, and then I think back to my childhood playing Xbox and computer games and my parents saying, "Where's that ever going to get you in life?" And then it's just it's 3D. It's in real life and I've got a joystick just like I had as a kid. And it's just the graphics are better now, right? You're spot on.

Drew Radford:

I like the graphics are better part. That's fantastic. What's AgTech mean to you? What distinguishes AgTech from other categories of technology?

Jonathan Dyer:

Well, I guess it's technology hopefully to help us grow food and or fibre in a better way. And by better way, I either mean more sustainably as in better for the planet, or more profitably, which is better for the farm and my family.

Drew Radford:

It's almost arguable that you've come back to the farm in a good time with that sort of experience. Why do you think there's such a focus on AgTech in Australia at the moment?

Jonathan Dyer:

I'll tell you why I'm interested in it. And it's probably a bit different to what you hear in other places. Everyone comes back to this got to feed the planet 10 billion by 2050, how are we going to do that kind of deal. But for me, I'm interested in AgTech because I want to still be farming in 2050. And Australia is a pretty hard place to farm, in some ways. While I'm probably in one of the more, I guess, favored parts of Australia where we farm, but it's still a land of extremes with climate. Any tool we can have to do what we do better and keep ourselves in the game, I guess, is a good thing.

Drew Radford:

Jonathan, your Nuffield scholarship, you looked at the use of AgTech data. How do you think that's going to be able to change agriculture in Australia?

Jonathan Dyer:

Yeah, well, that's what I looked at back in 2015, because prior to coming back on the farm, big data was kind of a corporate buzzword back then. And I was interested to find out if it meant anything to agriculture and to us farmers. And it is this concept that I've been introduced to in the technology corporate world, does that offer anything to us farmers? And I guess what I worked out over time is that, yes, data collection technologies in broadacre ag were already there in 2015, but coming even more so, and probably for pretty well everyone in the agriculture industry. The ability to collect data is coming, if it's not here already. And it's a bit like the invention of the tractor or the GPS or any of these other kind of major innovations that have happened. You can kind of learn about it and get on board and figure out how to use it. Because if you don't, sooner or later, someone else will figure out how to do that for you and then charge you for their service.

Drew Radford:

It's an interesting comparison though, Jonathan. Because a new innovation like a tractor, I can see it physically, tangibly, I know where it's going. But data that's disappearing through that device, over the net, to possibly on the other side of the planet, most farmers can't really get their head around actually what's being sucked out of the tractor. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way, you got to have an IT background to understand this well. So, how do you demystify that and the concerns that come with big data for primary producers?

Jonathan Dyer:

Yeah, it's a funny one. I'm not as worried about it as some people are, I guess, and maybe that's a millennial whatever, tell my life story on Facebook, don't care, that sort of thing. But what do we do, Drew? We grow food. Well, in my circumstance, I grow crops. My neighbors raise sheep as well as growing crops. It's not personal medical details and it's not banking information. Agriculture's very context specific. Yes, there are some engineers in a back room somewhere in America that have access to an awful lot of information about my farm's data, about what I do and how I do it. But he doesn't understand the context of our growing environment. He doesn't know what the soil type is and he doesn't know why I'm doing what I'm doing here. He only kind of sees the numbers on the screen. So, you need a lot of pieces to make a successful farm, and I think data in isolation on its own isn't that useful. Hopefully, it's the context and a better understanding that gives you information about what's happening on your own farm that makes it useful for you.

Drew Radford:

How then do you see data being utilized to make sure that you are in the box seat to still be farming in 2050?

Jonathan Dyer:

So, what I'm using it for is to try and understand what goes on, on our farm better. So, understand, I guess, the natural cycles that we kind of live in and deal with. The most common example, I guess, in broadacre grains, is collecting the yield information off your harvester at harvest time to see where a crop performed well and where it performed poorly. Alongside that, we're now capturing protein and moisture grain quality information as well. So, you can see not only which paddocks yielded well, you can see protein, which for wheat, the more protein, the better, right? The higher quality it is. So, you can see where your quality grain's coming from. And you can put those two things together and you know how much nutrition you are taking out of your paddock and may need to replace for next year's crop. So, for me, it's all about not ignoring that big picture stuff, because it could still be there and it can still be useful. But it's understanding what's happening on your own farm for a start anyway.

Drew Radford:

And for you, and I'd argue the next generation, merging a lot of that sort of data and seeing the power of it is a powerful thing. But for a lot of people, they'd need almost a third party to come in and try and pull that together, wouldn't they?

Jonathan Dyer:

Yeah. I'm not normal, Drew. You won't believe this, not everyone becomes a farmer so they can sit in an office and look at a screen and work some of this stuff out. Some people become farmers because they want to work outdoors or work with animals or drive tractors or a lot of different motivations. But sitting in an office often doesn't rank highly among farmers. So, it is certainly a new way of looking at things. And there are providers springing up to provide these exact services for that exact reason, because not everyone's like me.

Drew Radford:

What piece of AgTech do you wish had been invented, but hasn't turned up yet?

Jonathan Dyer:

The buzzword at the moment's the autonomous tractor. And while that would certainly be a revolution and a game changer, I think Mr. Musk is showing us that that's not an easy thing to do. I guess that's the obvious one. But probably a better one for me would be we've got soil-based moisture sensing now. I want soil-based nutrition. So, nitrogen, phosphorus and as many as the trace elements as you can fit on the sensor as well, so I know in real time what my crops are using and when they might be running short. For me, that would be really handy. And sitting alongside that, I guess, is another one, which is easier to use tools to analyze some of these things that I'm collecting. A lot of the farm apps are kind of in the late '90s with their design and layouts still. I've got to admit, Drew, I'm in the game and I see the value in it and I still find it hard and challenging and frustrating at times. There's a lot of potential there for that, but probably the ability to analyze different layers. It's a bit technical, but different resolutions of spatial data for me would be helpful.

Drew Radford:

What advice would you give to farmers getting involved in this space?

Jonathan Dyer:

The kind of the cliche saying that I heard on the travels was, what gets measured, gets improved.

Drew Radford:

So, what you're basically saying, if you can't measure it, you can't improve it.

Jonathan Dyer:

That's right. Everyone has that bug bear of a problem somewhere on the farm. But if you don't collect numbers around it, you can't make an economic rational kind of decision about, well, is this a big enough problem for me to fix? So, if you want to collect information on your spray coverage with your spray, there's an app, you can get water sensitive paper and then you take a photo of the paper and then you get data on what percentage of the ground you're covering with your sprayer. Thinking about grain storage, it's now possible to get moisture sensors that go in your grain bins to tell you how your grain storage is looking. So, it's just the sky is the limit in terms of options. It's just picking the thing that's a problem that you want to solve or something that you've always wanted to understand more about.

Drew Radford:

You're a bloke who's spent plenty of time looking at screens. Is there any traps to avoid?

Jonathan Dyer:

Yeah, well, the only thing that really comes to mind is just if you are using a new piece of technology, and it doesn't matter whether it's software or the tractor or whatever, is you buy and sell these things on the support you get. As much as the product itself is finding good help if you need it. That's the thing. And don't be afraid to ask, because we're all learning.

Drew Radford:

While Jonathan Dyer is a digital native, not all primary producers are as comfortable with AgTech. The nation's AgTech sector became aware of this, so they formed the Australian Agritech Association, which in part helps demystify the sector whilst also advocating for it. Tracey Martin is their CEO. She now lives on a cattle property in Northern Queensland, which has required quite a different tack from her former career.

Tracey Martin:

Absolutely. I've had a career in law and also worked in international financial regulation during the financial crisis in the years that followed that. So, definitely a big change, but certainly loving the excitement and, I guess, the incredible change in progression that we're seeing in agriculture.

Drew Radford:

How did you make that shift across to agriculture, Tracey?

Tracey Martin:

Well, one of the challenges of living in rural and regional Australia is access to work and having opportunities where you can use your skills, particularly when you're on a remote cattle station. And the opportunity with Aus Agritech popped up and it included policy and negotiation and also leading an association, which I'd had a bit of experience in since moving to the station. And it's one of those things. Not scared to pivot and try new things.

Drew Radford:

To you then, Tracey, what is AgTech?

Tracey Martin:

For me, it's the application of technology to agriculture. The ideas and solutions can come from farmers or from people in the tech sector or people in the business sector. Certainly, from an Aus Agritech point of view, we look at it through the lens of applying technology to agriculture, and we make sure that we look at it like that, just so that we make sure that we build out the really important elements that you must have to have a strong tech sector. We think that's important because unless you've got a strong tech sector which underpins the application of technology to agriculture, we really can't have sustainable and cost effective solutions for farmers.

Drew Radford:

Well, Tracey, you said there that it's really important to have a strong tech sector. So, is that kind of then what the role of the Australian Agritech Association is? Or is it broader than that?

Tracey Martin:

It's probably broader than that, but I think at the moment, the really pressing issue in Australia, and it's right across a range of different tech sectors, is Australia getting focused on making itself strong in all areas of tech, in making those investments, both in research and in the commercial sector, and drawing in the investment into the fantastic ideas that business people are developing in that sector and making sure they stay onshore here in Australia. That's a really big issue at the federal level at the moment. So, it's something that we're focusing on. But certainly all the other grassroots issues that impact agritech are really important to us, too.

Drew Radford:

Tracey, we hear the term digital agriculture banded around. How does this differ from AgTech?

Tracey Martin:

So, digital agriculture is used to try to encompass the application of all different sorts of technology to agriculture, but there's other technology that is applied to agriculture that goes way beyond digital. So, digital can be a little bit of a narrow term. If you just refer to digital agriculture, you're actually leaving out a number of different technologies. So, you can talk about digital agriculture, but you need to talk about agritech in its entirety as well.

Drew Radford:

Tracey, let's delve down a little deeper then into AgTech. For you, what are the elements of a good AgTech product?

Tracey Martin:

Being a agriculture producer myself and talking with lots of producers about technology that they are interested in looking at, or maybe applying to their business, it needs to have a benefit for them and a bottom line benefit. Improve productivity, or have cost savings. It also needs to be at a reasonable price level. The other things that producers really look for is service. So, making sure that there's follow-up service and there's also the implementation support with a piece of technology. And as you can imagine, if you are a tech provider, service right across this very large country and tech support can be quite an expensive exercise. So, they've come up with many innovative ways to do that. And I think certainly with online support, it's quite easy for agricultural producers to access that sort of support with implementation of technology on their properties.

Drew Radford:

Is transparency and demystifying what's actually going on an important part of that process of data being collected and where it's going and how they're applying that?

Tracey Martin:

Absolutely. We're big supporters of the National Farmers Federation (NFF) farm data code. And we're working with them at the moment in their next stage in terms of implementing that within Australia. Look, I think there's nothing wrong with transparency, and I think it really helps the consumer and certainly helps the AgTech provider in communicating to the purchaser of the product about what the product does, but also what happens with their data. It might be the case that someone can't completely comply with the NFF farm data code, and there might be a range of different reasons for that. But certainly if they're transparent about what they're doing with that data, and that's all written in plain English, we think that really does help the relationship between the customer and the AgTech provider.

Drew Radford:

Tracey, you've taken quite a pivot in your career. What excites you most about AgTech?

Tracey Martin:

There's some really interesting challenges in the world today. Certainly sustainability and the carbon transition and making sure that, as the global population grows, that we can feed people. I think that's incredibly important. I'm also a huge fan of agricultural producers. I think we sit down and we eat a meal three times a day, and I think having respect and demystifying where that food comes from is really important for people sitting in metro areas. And I've spent most of my life living in metropolitan areas. I think it's really important to support agriculture as much as we can. And I think as we move through these challenges, whether environmental or social challenges, just around sustainability in the environment. And I think agritech can go a long way to achieving that. And I mean, even just living on a cattle station myself, I can see the way that technology can certainly improve the quality of life in rural and regional areas, improve financial sustainability, and help grow our regions and help grow the prosperity of Australia as well.

Drew Radford:

Tracey, you bring a really broad background to such an important area of agriculture. Tracey Martin, CEO of the Australian Agritech Association. Thank you for taking the time and sharing your insights with us on this AgVic Talk podcast.

Tracey Martin:

Thanks so much, Drew. Great to talk to you today.

Outro:

Thank you for listening to AgVic Talk. For more episodes in this series, find us and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. We would love to hear your feedback, so please leave a comment or rating, and share this series with your friends and family. All information is accurate at the time of release. Contact Agriculture Victoria or your consultant before making any changes on farm. This podcast was developed by Agriculture Victoria, authorized by the Victorian Government Melbourne.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to season five of the AgVic Talk podcast. This season's all about ag tech and energy. What is it? How do you identify opportunities and plenty of tips and tricks from farmers and experts. Indeed, it's probably them that can best explain what this season's all about.

Speaker 3:

Every now and then when I'm on the tractor or the sprayer and then I look down at the joystick, which is full of buttons, and then I think back to my childhood playing Xbox and computer games and my parents saying, "Where's that ever going to get you in life?" And then it's just, it's 3D, it's in real life and I've got a joystick just like I had as a kid. And it's just the graphics are better now, right?

Speaker 2:

We begin by covering the basics, defining what is ag tech and energy.

Speaker 4:

For me, it's the application of technology to agriculture. The ideas and solutions can come from farmers or from people in the tech sector or people in the business sector.

Speaker 5:

For farmers themselves, the important thing is that energy technology is part of their whole farm planning. There's energy, there's labour, there's water efficiency, it's where they want to progress and go forward in their business. It's about environmental sustainability and drought resilience. That's what we were trying to capture and they're the factors that farmers have to look at as energy is one part of them going forward and adopting progressive technologies and enhancing their productivity over time.

Speaker 2:

Also, we delve into research trials both on the land and in the air.

Speaker 6:

The farmers did use the drone over the summer period as well, just to see what other activities it could do. Looking at water troughs, fence lines, checking irrigation channels, checking how far the irrigation water had moved down a paddock. It was also quite useful, one farmer had his ewes and lambs in an oat crop during lambing, so he couldn't see them from the car because of the height of the oats, whereas he could see all the sheep from the air. He didn't have to search for them in his car or go through the oat crop in his car because he could see them from the air.

Speaker 2:

And finally, the bottom line, how will this help your farm both now and into the future?

Speaker 7:

The auditor identified that the diesel consumption for irrigation took up 82 per cent of our energy use, and so that then made it a bit of a no-brainer. And then for me, it was two huge diesel engines that were driving each of those bores. You could hear them across the farm and the neighbours would say they knew when we weren't irrigating, which was a little bit sad, and conscious of the amount of carbon that was emitting.

Speaker 3:

Probably a better one for me would be we've got soil based moisture sensing now. I want soil based nutrition, so nitrogen, phosphorus and as many of the trace elements as you can fit on the sensor as well. So I know in real time what the crops are using and when they might be running short. For me, that would be really handy.

Speaker 2:

To hear these stories in detail and so much more that is in season five of AgVic Talk follow us wherever you get your podcasts.