{"id":29274,"date":"2017-11-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/tech-showcase-will-need-many-farms\/"},"modified":"2017-11-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-31T11:00:00","slug":"tech-showcase-will-need-many-farms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/news\/tech-showcase-will-need-many-farms\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech showcase will need many farms"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

Beef + Lamb New Zealand was looking for a hill country property to showcase technology and farming systems.<\/p>\n

The location, budget and scope of the idea were yet to be confirmed but the plan was to find a farm and start by July 2018.<\/p>\n

B+LNZ compared the concept to the dairy industry\u2019s farm and research unit at Lincoln University and a university-owned farm at Armidale in New South Wales.<\/p>\n

The farm would operate at the development end of a research and development continuum, project leader Richard Wakelin said.<\/p>\n

But Lamb, from the University of New England, said its Smart (Sustainable Manageable Accessible Rural Technologies) farm was a cradle-to-grave operation.<\/p>\n

The university had transformed Kirby-Newholme, a 2900ha commercial farm into a Smart farm.<\/p>\n

Its commercial farms at Armidale were linked to an agri-tech demonstration unit and innovation centre running academic experiments, commercial trials and demonstrations. Operating costs were minimal because the farm was an extension of the university.<\/p>\n

The Smart farm stated in the 1990s and the university now had about A$16 million of agri-tech on its books.<\/p>\n

It had owned commercial farms in the area since the 1960s so adding the Smart farm had been seamless.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a living relationship with the real farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

The university also had relationships with 29 other farmers around Australia who hosted experiments, trials and technology displays.<\/p>\n

Lamb, a physicist whose research interests included applied optics and precision agriculture, advised B+LNZ against splitting research and development on its prospective property.<\/p>\n

The Smart farm, innovation centre and campus benefited from constant interaction with farmers and the public, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cResearch and development is a two-way process.\u201d<\/p>\n

He could not imagine how one farm or even a handful could test and show NZ\u2019s diverse farming as well as a range of commercial wares.<\/p>\n

Lamb said the university had no pre-determined thinking about what type of farming systems would be tested and displayed though the technology had to be broadly applicable.<\/p>\n

The centre had to choose between about 100 types of drone, for example.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look at this through the lens of what could be used to educate the farming community.\u201d<\/p>\n

A $2m agri-tech building hosted about 5000 unsolicited public visitors in the past two years plus school groups, corporates and busloads of farmers turning up for meetings and field days.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe programme is built as an educational adjunct to the uni. We were not prepared for it to become a tourist attraction.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was helping to promote Armidale businesses and capability in the bush.<\/p>\n

The Smart innovation centre initially cost $3m to set up and the annual bill was now $100,000 as a proportion of ordinary university staff time.<\/p>\n

The complex received grants and most of the workforce was voluntary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re running on the smell of an oily rag,\u201d Lamb said.<\/p>\n

MORE:<\/p>\n

une.edu.au\/research\/research-centres-institutes\/smart-farm\/about-the-smart-farm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sheep and beef farmers would be better off using a national network of smart farms than having a single, super unit, Australian agri-science Professor David Lamb says.\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":29275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t