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Our Vision

Australia’s 140,000 farms; many of them small-medium, family owned businesses, are a vital part of our teleworking future, both on and off farm. Farm-to-customer retail, remote on-farm product support, tele-veterinary  and tele-agronomic support, remote diagnostics, assisted living, tele-health and education are but a few of the exciting possibilities available to an emerging  smart services sector. Farms are a rich source of environmental  data, for both farm managers and their external advisors, and also for those involved in the health of our landscapes. Add to these opportunities in crowd sourcing and ‘citizen science’.  Then come the technology developers working on the latest in ICT and sensors. Examples include high-volume sensor networks and intra-farm communications supporting remote vision, plant/animal sensors and precision agriculture. We also face challenges and opportunities around how we manage data and information within and between stakeholder and client groups; how we store and secure it, derive value-add products from it and exchange it. Finally, of course, none of this will ever fly unless it stacks up economically.

Our digital rural future is bountiful but it will be challenging.  Digital Rural Futures 2013 (Smart Farms – Smart Regions) is a national forum aimed at raising awareness of, and promoting discussion around these challenges and opportunities. We invite you to attend this 3-day event; to hear, to present, and ultimately play a role in ensuring Australia gets the best out of our digital rural future. We look forward to seeing you in Armidale.

 

Conference Themes

  • Smart technology and systems on the farm:   This will explore new ways to improve farm management through the appropriate use of sensors and sensor networks, immersive and sentinel vision and communication technologies, far-end control and autonomous systems (including UAVs and robotics) for environment and agricultural production:

  
  • Better use and sharing of information:  The will explore new approaches to improve access to and sharing of information for better decision making in the agricultural and natural resource sectors. This includes the use of  cloud-based services, data sharing systems, crowd sourcing and citizen science, and remote surveys 
  
  • New smart services for the rural sector:   This will explore how new digital services will provide better decision-support and advisory services for farmers such as remote veterinary and agronomy expertise , open up new market opportunities to reach new consumers and value-add to agriculture output, as well as allow rural Australian improved access better health, education and social services.