Central Victoria is playing host to what the nation's peak hay and silage body is calling 'Fodderganza'.
The three-day focus on fodder will kick off with the annual Fodder Festival at Elmore, Vic, before moving to Bendigo for the two-day Australian Fodder Industry Association national conference.
Fodderganza will run between August 15-17.
AFIA chief executive Paula Fitzgerald said all the major machinery providers would put their latest machines to the test in the paddock at Elmore, harvesting annual ryegrass.
Senior representatives of dealers would be on hand to answer any questions farmers might have about the machines.
"We've got the people who brought these machines into the country and are putting them in the paddock," she said.
The two-day Bendigo conference would cover the very broad theme of "futureproofing fodder".
It would cover topics such as a low-carbon future for the sector and an update on the National Hay Agronomy project.
"That has been a four-year program that has concluded and restarted in a different way," she said.
"Because of COVID and other things the audience is probably not as informed about this program as it should be, yet it's a critical project in terms of underpinning some of our understanding the role of hay on farms."
The conference would also discuss a fodder stocktake.
"Fodder to me seems to be very sexy when there is a drought or a flood, but then interest goes away," she said.
During drought, a number of initiatives, such as using satellites to map fodder supplies and track their movement, were raised but then seemed to fall out of the public eye.
"If we had a stocktake that could actually tell you were all the fodder was at any particular time," she said.
"Does the industry see that as a positive or a negative?"
Ms Fitzgerald said anyone who was producing hay or silage should think of coming to Elmore.
"It's a great day out to see those machines in action, to be able to compare and to talk to the people responsible for them," she said.
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