IoT roll-out proving beneficial for crop producer

Neil and Sue Davis live in town, 10 kilometres from their property, and took part in the Victorian government's IoT trial.

They had two weather stations, four rain gauges and several security devices installed on the property about nine months ago.

"It's been fabulous, we only had three gauges prior to that, now we've got six," Mr Davis said.

"It gives you a lot better picture of what's falling where

"Where we are here we are now fairly dependent on summer rainfall, storing it and using it for winter crops."

The Low Power Wide Area Network, commonly referred to as LoRaWAN, was funded as part of the Victorian government's On-Farm IoT trial and was rolled out by National Narrowband Network Communications (NNNCo).

He said the weather stations were three or four kilometres apart.

"That also includes an inversion monitor, that's the one we use for our spray records, so it gives you a bit of a handle on inversion risk, as well as Delta-T (atmospheric moisture parameters) wind direction and speed."

Mr Davis said prior to the installation of the IoT system, they would have to 'do a circuit' of the gauges, to get an idea of where the rain fell.

"It would take you a couple of hours to get around the gauges and the roads were muddy.

"Now you can do that in a few seconds."

When spraying, he said they used to use a hand-held weather station,

"You've have to jump out and get the details - now we just sit in the cab and read it off the phone."

Living in Birchip, he said he was always aware of what was going on at the property.

"If an alarm goes off, someone has gone in the gate, so we have a look on the phone and see who it is.

"It's taken away some of the disadvantages of living off-farm, plus we have the advantage of living in town, close to facilities."

Mr Davis said even greater benefit would accrue to livestock products, who could use the system to check troughs and tanks.

"You have to weigh up the cost, if you are running stock, it's a no brainer."

The network spreads across 32,000 square kilometres, in four Victorian regions.

NNNCo chief executive and co-founder Rob Zagarella said IoT had a major role to play in Australian agriculture, particularly as the sector worked towards its goals of becoming a $100 billion industry and carbon neutral by 2030.

"LoRaWAN is ideal for the agriculture sector because it was developed for industries that needed a cost-effective, long-range signal with a battery life of many years for IoT sensors, and the ability to meet 100 per cent of all coverage needs to every sensor and device deployed in the field," he said

"NNNCo was able to set up the network quickly, providing kilometres of service in any direction and bringing connectivity to areas that other technologies could not reach."

In the trial, some farmers have used environmental sensors, like soil moisture probes, to analyse real-time weather data and determine the best time and quantity of water for irrigation.

Others used sensors to monitor throughs, tanks, silos or gates opening.

That ensured the most effective use of water, electricity, and time, reduced costs and improved sustainability.

Mr Zagarella said NNNCo had worked with local contractors and farmers to install IoT network connectivity on farms around Birchip, Serpentine, Tatura and Maffra.

"We've installed around 150 gateways on farms and provided our data exchange platform product called N2N-DL to ensure data generated from the trial can be turned into meaningful information for farmers to make more informed decisions."

The N2N-DL IoT platform harmonised access to a vast range of sensors and devices, with integration to 18 ag-tech solutions providers.

"The establishment of a ubiquitous telco-grade network and delivery of data from apps and devices to the Agriculture Victoria data lake will accelerate the adoption of ag-tech, improve on-farm connectivity and deliver agricultural productivity and sustainability gains," he said..

"The provision of grants for farmers in trial regions incentivised Ag Tech uptake and de-risked the investment".

Agriculture Victoria's Agriculture Policy acting executive director, Dr Julie Simons, said the lack of reliable on-farm connectivity, capital costs and uncertainty around navigating technology choices posed barriers, which prevented some farmers from adopting emerging digital technologies on-farm.

"The LoRaWAN network being delivered through the trial is helping to overcome these challenges by supporting farmers to test the benefits of IoT technology such as soil moisture probes, weather monitoring, humidity and temperature monitoring, water tank level monitoring, and asset tracking on their farms," Dr Simons said.

"The IoT trial is not only an opportunity for horticulture, dairy, sheep and cropping farmers to establish the technology best suited to their circumstances, it will also allow us to share lessons from the trial with other farmers to help them better understand how investments in IoT technologies can assist their decision making and improve their operations."