Facilitating workshops that bring together key agricultural experts from government, industry and research sectors to understand priorities and needs for space based technologies which could provide intelligence to the agriculture sector.
The Challenge
SmartSat CRC understand that space technologies are an important part of servicing the future of the Australian agriculture industry. Using advanced telecommunications, IoT connectivity, intelligent satellite systems and Earth Observation next generation data services will support monitoring of crops, prediction models to guide commercial decisions, help management of pests, weeds and diseases.
This workshop was conducted in Brisbane, Qld, to engage with key agricultural experts to consult with industry and end-users for the SmartSatCRC TerraWatch program. This was done to understand the strategic challenges, vision of future success, and priority focus areas across four key pillars – soil health, crop yield, biosecurity, and sustainability, climate and environment. This consultation sought to better understand how satellite technologies can be used to facilitate Australia to be a leader in Agriculture globally, and what impacts sovereign satellite capabilities could have in creating this.
Partners
This project would not have been possible without SmartSat CRC, who provided the platform and opportunity for these consultation to take place.
The Solution
SmartSatCRC’s TerraWatch program hold strong potential to positively impact the future of Australia’s Agriculture industry, allowing us to be world-leaders in sustainable real-time land management through being able to identify accurately what is being grown or produced where, how to optimise inputs to maximise outputs, and how to manage communication between producer and end-user to strengthen biosecurity outcomes. As a nation, we have the potential to be leaders in Agricultural production and practice in the Asia-Pacific region and globally.
This workshop has gained strong insights into the challenges which currently exist for end-users and industry within the Agriculture sector in Queensland, particularly regarding what opportunities exist which satellite technologies have the potential to solve. There is broad agreement about the ability of satellite technologies to significantly impact the future of the industry for the better, and many clear visions of how this could look. There is further work to be done, however, in understanding how satellite technologies can work to solve these problems within the coming decade as a starting point and linking this to what that would mean for sovereign capability of Australia’s space industry. Further consultation with both end-users and industry in the Agriculture sector, as well as the space and spatial community, will be beneficial to fill gaps which still exist following this workshop.
Impact
This workshop has provided foundational insights for SmartSat CRC regarding the needs of the Queensland Agriculture industry with regards to sovereign Earth Observation intelligence. There is general agreement across the Agriculture sector that satellite technologies are a valuable asset for the future of the industry which can provide data needed for efficiencies across the entire pipeline from production to consumption
There is clear agreement that being led by technological solutions will not benefit industry or end-users. The existing broader data landscape shows that there is already a vast wealth of existing data across industry, government and academia – adding more data to this does not make sense unless it is FAIR and collaborative.
There is a strong recognised need for design thinking principles in the concept and design of TerraWatch in order to ensure that it results in data and products which are useful, relevant and provide meaningful impact for end-users.
With the emerging changes in weather patterns resulting from climate change, implementing end-user needs as well as Indigenous knowledges is more important now than ever before, and satellite technologies can help achieve this.
Contact
To learn more, contact Project Manager, Roshni Sharma, at rsharma@frontiersi.com.au.