ACCELERATING PRECISION AGRICULTURE TO DECISION

Abstract

In 2016 the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture and Water Resources initiated a Rural Research and Development (R&D) for Profit Research Project entitled "Accelerating Precision Agriculture to Decision Agriculture". One of the aims the project, and hence the purpose of this review, is to deliver “recommendations for data communications to improve decision making- or decision agriculture”. During the period of August 2016 – June 2017, a series of eight workshops, numerous phone interviews and site visitations around Australia sought to understand the current status of on-farm telecommunications at the farm level in support of a digital agriculture future. This review has sought a ‘producer-eye’ view, seeking to understand the dimensions of key enabling telecommunications utilized by producers, factors constraining the uptake or adoption of available enabling technologies, as well as investigating the future telecommunications needs and opportunities. Information has been solicited from not only producers, but also providers of technologies and data services to producers, as well as those developing those technologies and services.