Investment in science and industry development key to profitable agrifood sector 2

HIGHLIGHTS

• 
  Design and implement flagship research projects.
  
• 
  Construct contemporary grains R&D infrastructure in Northam, complementing facilities in Merredin, Esperance and Geraldton with multipurpose application.
  
• 
  Employ skilled research professionals, including early career scientists, throughout the grainbelt.
  
• 
  Establish the state soil archive at Muresk Institute, Northam.
  

Funding and collaborators

DRD Royalties for Regions, Office of Science, GRDC, GIG, Muresk Institute.

Royalties for Regions: eConnected Grainbelt – Helping grain growers better manage risk

Science team: Tim Maling (project Leader), Fiona Evans, Kefei Chen, Alain Baillard, Neil Steventon, Sam Hassel, Nader Mustafa, Roena Hooper, Brett Dias, Katherine Davies, Tanya Kilminster, Hayley Smythe, Rebecca O’Leary, Alison Lacey, Brendan Nicholas, Janette Pratt, Chad Reynolds, Jeremy Lemon, Ian Foster

Technology is an important component to ensuring our state’s agricultural sector remains internationally competitive.

DAFWA’s eConnected Grainbelt project, a Royalties for Regions investment, is working to connect information across the grains industry to enable growers to make more profitable decisions tailored to their farm business.

The eConnected Grainbelt project is seeking involvement from growers, consultants and agribusiness to ensure decision support tools, systems and technologies developed by the project meet the needs of the industry.

We are working with 14 grower groups and consultants who are hosting 11 eDemonstration sites across the grainbelt. Each site has been fully instrumented with an automatic weather station and soil moisture probes at no cost to the grower group ready for the 2016 growing season.

These sites provide a place where growers, consultants and industry can gather to learn about, compare and contrast all of the decision support tools, systems and technologies available for on-farm decision making. This technology will empower growers with information and decision making tools to manage risks and boost the profitability of their grain production businesses.

Grower groups that host the eDemonstration sites include the Corrigin Farm Improvement Group, Facey Group, Far East Agricultural Research Group (FEAR), Merredin and Districts Farm Improvement Group, Mingenew–Irwin Group, South East Premium Wheat Growers’ Association, Southern DIRT, West Arthur Trials Group, Stirlings to Coast Farmers, Gillamii Centre, West Midlands Group, Grainbelt Natural Resource Management, and Yuna Farm Improvement Group.
As well as developing decision tools, the eConnected Grainbelt project is opening up access to DAFWA datasets via application programming interfaces (APIs). This will allow third parties to incorporate DAFWA data, such as DAFWA’s weather station data, into their own applications.

HIGHLIGHTS

• 
  The state government has committed $10 million Royalties for Regions funding to the eConnected project to ensure our grains industry uses technology to remain internationally competitive.
  
• 
  We are working with growers to ensure they have the skills and confidence to use technology and new tools for decision making, and ensuring we are developing tools they need. End-user feedback has prioritised12 decision tools for development.
  
• 
  We are opening up DAFWA data to third parties through the development of application programming interfaces (APIs).
  

Funding and collaborators

DRD Royalties for Regions, GRDC

DAFWA’s R&D Collaborators

Collaborator	Acronym
Agvivo
Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics	ACPFG
Australian Grain Technologies	AGT
Birchip Cropping Group
Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority	BGPA
Central West Farming Systems (NSW)
Centre for Crop and Disease Management at Curtin University	CCDM
Centre for Pesticide Application and Safety (CPAS) at the University of Queensland	CPAS
Centre for Rhizobium Studies at Murdoch University	CRS
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation	CSIRO
ConsultAg
Council of Australian Grain Grower Organisations	COGGO
CSBP
Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, QLD	QDAF
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources, Victoria	DEDJTR, formerly DEPI
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (Vic.)	DELWP
Department of Primary Industries (NSW)	DPI
Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries NT	DPIF
Department of Regional Development Royalties for Regions	DRD
Desiree Futures
Facey Group
Far East Agricultural Research Group	FEAR
Fitzgerald Biosphere Group
Foundation for Arable Research Australia, Victoria	FAR Australia
Grains Research and Development Corporation	GRDC
Grains Industry Group	GIG
Gillamii Centre
Imtrade
InterGrain
International Barley Genome Consortium
Kalyx Australia
Landmark
Liebe Group
Lime WA Inc
Living Farm
LongReach Plant Breeders
Merredin and Districts Farm Improvement Group	MADFIG
Marcroft Grains Pathology
Max Planck Institute For Plant Breeding Research, Germany
Merredin Dryland Farming Group
Mingenew–Irwin Group	MIG
Mullewa Dryland Farming Initiative
Muresk Institute
Murdoch University	MU
Northampton Agriservices
Precision Agriculture
Precision Agronomics Australia
Pulse Breeding Australia	PBA
Ravensthorpe Agricultural Initiative Network	RAIN
Regional Cropping Solutions Network	RCSN
Riverine Plains
Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation	RIRDC
Rural Solutions SA
Seednet
SoilsWest at University of Western Australia
South Australia Research Development Institute	SARDI
South East Premium Wheat Growers Association	SEPWA
Southern Dirt
Southern Farming Systems (Vic)
Statistics for the Australian Grains Industry	SAGI
Sensorem
Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture	TIA
The James Hutton Institute, UK
Thinkspatial
University of Adelaide	UA
University of California
University of South Australia	UniSA
University of Southern Queensland	USQ
University of Sydney	US
University of Tasmania	UT
University of New South Wales	UNSW
University of Western Australia	UWA
University of Wollongong	UoW
University Tel Aviv - Institute for Cereal Crops Improvement ICCI
VSN International
Wagga Wagga Agricultural Institute	WWAI
West Midlands Group
West Arthur Trials Group
Western Australia No-Tillage Farmers Association	WANTFA
Yuna Farm Improvement Group
Zhejiang University, China