The farm sector's love affair with new technology has delivered plenty of efficiency gains and data gathering options, but in reality, not much newly-released agtech is actually used on Australian farms.
Agriculture's national agtech industry event, evokeAg, last week heard some home truths about what's hot and what's not considered terribly helpful by primary producers.
"As exciting as this technology space is, agtech is not really being adopted on the farm, and I don't think you can blame farmers," said self confessed digital technology disciple, turned Tasmanian beef producer, Sam Trethewey.
"It's not a farmer adoption problem, it's a relevance problem.
"My weapon of choice is Brian, a 65-year-old who has been farming for 40-plus years and has an insane amount of data and insight in his head.
"He uses a bit of software, too. Most people use a bit of agtech on their farms, but not a lot, really."
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Mr Trethewey said anecdotal evidence indicated today's farming problems were more likely to be solved by human eyes, ears, brains and senses, and farmers' critical connection to their land.
In fact, there was a real risk that immersing farmers in the wrong technology, or too much of it, would undermine those valuable senses and the connectivity they had with their farm.
Ironically, until a few years ago Mr Trethewey was leading Australia's first agtech accelerator program, SproutX, which also provided venture capital funding for startup farm technology ideas and businesses.
Wheels spinning
"We want more useful technology, but what's there isn't necessarily what we need at the moment," he said.
"In Australia agtech seems to be just spinning its wheels.
"A lot of people are carrying around technology in their pocket looking for a problem to solve."
His cutting comments at the big Adelaide convention followed an observation by Elders managing director, Mark Allison, also a farm technology enthusiast, who said emerging developments were wonderful in many ways, but they had limitations.
"Ag technology solves problems, enhances capabilities and helps improve productivity and efficiency, but agtech does not solve problems on its own," Mr Allison said.
"It can only be a tool.
"Agtech products are reliant on, and dare I say, are nothing without, human application.
"We often talk about how agtech enhances what we as humans do, but in many cases technology can't serve its purpose without humans being closely involved to apply it appropriately."
He also noted a worrying side to the rise of technology tools providing technical advice, farm management help and machinery diagnostic services from afar, via online links and data trails back to technicians, farm advisors and banking services.
While smartphone screens, Zoom meetings and remote monitoring equipment may help producers work out solutions in the paddock with off-farm experts who could be thousands of kilometres away, the more these remote services and technologies were relied on, the greater the risk of fewer services and technicians being deployed in the field, or living and working in a farmer's home district.
This, in turn, undermined opportunities for producers to work side by side and learn with technical specialists, understanding new technology, and cultivating the insight and problem solving which came with human interaction.
People make it work
"These technologies cannot be of maximum value without people maintaining and tending to relationships with farmers and communities to ensure they are relevant, applicable and useful," Mr Allison said.
Elders considered its role in the bush was to be an agtech provider via its teams of agronomists, livestock agents and merchandise experts, delivering that critical hands-on link between agtech and farm success.
"Real people can identify the potential, unforeseen negative social and economic impacts that the technologies will never see," he said.
Shrinking banking services in regional communities provided examples of technology's disappointing consequences.
In many cases banks were more detached from their farming base, while branch closures also robbed country towns of valued talent, and families which were integral to the fabric of rural communities, schools and sporting clubs.
Mr Allison said there was also a lot of merit in relocating government jobs and innovation centres to regional areas to foster economic growth and technical skills.
Workplaces such as AgriFutures and the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority now boasted much better empathy with, and understanding of, their client base, end users and their role in the farm sector after moving from Canberra to Wagga Wagga and Armidale.
"The culture changes benefit the government organisations and the communities where they bring fresh people, ideas, technical capacity and spending power."
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Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
