High speed internet and mobile connectivity is vital for farmers to take advantage of the huge productivity gains on-farm data could provide.
That was the key message from APA Sound's Ian Ware and Kaniva farmer Jonathan Dyer at last week's Birchip Cropping Group's Farmers Expo.
Mr Ware urged the more than 200 farmers in attendance to take technology in their own hands to improve their connectivity, including buying antennae and signal dishes, and even working with those with a good connection to boost it out to their farms.
He said being proactive was also paramount to get connected to the National Broadband Network (NBN).
"Make sure you're at home when it comes to the test because the installers are picking the easiest jobs," Mr Ware said.
"It's very painful to see NBN towers go up when with a little bit more money and newer technology, they could double or quadruple the coverage."
Mr Dyer knows the importance of connectivity on his farm and further afield, as he is travelling the world to see how farmers turn data into dollars as part of his Nuffield scholarship.
He said cost and ease-of-use had also kept farmers from taking up technology.
"Since I got my first iPhone in about 2006, my phone has got a hell of a lot easier to use but we haven't progressed as much in agriculture because you don't sell as many auto-steer tractors," he said.
But Mr Ware said there were many companies overseas, particularly in the US and Japan, that were realising the potential value of the data-hungry farming sector.
This year, Mr Dyer has been to France, England, Brazil, the US, Mexico and New Zealand, and will soon travel to Israel.
"The US is where a lot of investment being made. I've woken up to the amount of data that can be utilised.
"Data use is pretty big in Brazil too."
With father Alwyn and uncle Eric, Mr Dyer farms 2500 hectares of grains, canola and legumes, from which they collect harvest yield, rainfall, EM38 conductivity maps and paddock operations.
"In terms of productivity gains, it is early days; in the last two years it has been quite dry so we have used that data to focus on cost-cutting instead of increasing yields," Mr Dyer said.
"We are saving fertiliser costs and managing weeds better, including by increasing plant populations in problematic areas, so they can outcompete the weeds."
Mr Dyer said for farmers to tap into the power of data, they needed to plan, set goals and assess performance.
"To use data, you need to first work out what you are trying to solve – whether it is why some areas of the paddock perform worse despite having the same inputs, or how you can improve machinery efficiency," he said.
"You need an end goal; otherwise it's easy to push data collection aside, say during harvest the yield recorder breaks, a lot of us mightn't fix it, but what gets measured gets improved."
