Australian agriculture has come a long way in the past ten years. Through the application of technology, improving almost every process.
Technology has been applied in an endless list of agricultural processes. Including farm machinery, livestock handing facilities, feeding capabilities, agronomy, communication others. Below is a few ways in which technology has evolved within agricultural industries.
Finance
Managing what seems like a mountain of paperwork can be stressful and time consuming. Accounting, banking and payroll software have come a long way in recent years. The simplifying and streamlining of book work, better budgeting, improved reporting capabilities. It has also improved the ability to communicate with banks, tax agencies and other financial institutions. Financial processes take less time and create fewer headaches for many.
Farm Management
Management of livestock numbers provide producers with many advantages. Some include monitoring livestock movements, trading, reporting, forward planning and feeding programs. New technology and applications streamline this process. It allows producers to track their livestock. As well as create reports that assist in tracking their effectiveness and costs.
Using technology, the lifetime tractability of livestock is now more effective than ever. Electronic ear tags paired with the National Livestock Identification Scheme allow both producers and external groups to track Australian stock movements and numbers. Having lifetime tractability is important for various reasons including;
- Disease Response,
- market access,
- reputation,
- identification.
GPS & Vehicle Operation Tracking
Agricultural processes such as broad acre cropping and management has also come a very long way. Through the application of technology in machinery and crop tracking technology. GPS technology can be used in machinery to track vehicle movements and fuel consumption. Relieving stain on the farmer through vehicle assist technology, operation tracking to monitor yield and crop quality, track maintenance as well as direct communication through cloud technology.
Digital Marketing Monitoring
Marketing is an important tool for Australian farmers, as it is form many other Australian businesses. Online programs and applications have streamlined many time-consuming processes involved in marketing management. This new software allows users to track their online activity, to manage website and social media campaign activity. Facebook has developed their technology so that reporting is easy and free. Which is useful for many users who what to know who is watching and when.
WHS & HR
Work, health and safety and human resource management is as important in agricultural businesses as it is in any other industry. Managing WHS and HR can take a significant amount of time, stress and energy. Luckily technology has stepped in and streamlined processes such as;
- Inductions,
- policies and procedures,
- form templates,
- Stress-free hazard and incident reporting,
- Plant and equipment registers,
- SDS registers.
Remote Monitoring & Drones
Many properties cover a vast number of acres. This makes checking water points, stock monitoring time consuming and costly. New Technology allows businesses to access information from their computers, even phones to watch, even alert if there is an issue.
Drones are becoming more and more popular and provide some benefit to agricultural business. They have a unique advantage in being able to provide live information that can be beneficial in many ways. Some being;
- Crop health monitoring,
- site/ paddock surveying,
- stock feed bunk monitoring,
- water point checking.
These are just a few examples of software that are available in today’s market. There are new programs appearing, bigger and better than the next. These different technology advances have improved information capturing, monitoring, efficiency of operations, cost reduction and waste.
