The most useful ideas at this year’s national gathering weren’t the newest, but the ones producers can put to work now.
Every precision ag event comes with its share of shiny prototypes. What was striking at this year’s symposium was how much of the genuinely useful material was already commercially proven on farms, with a clear path to adoption.
The Grower Group Alliance (GGA) joined producers, advisers and researchers from across the country at the 2026 Australian Precision Agriculture Symposium, hosted by the Society of Precision Agriculture Australia (SPAA) and the University of Sydney in Sydney on 31 August and 1 September. It was a broad national program covering robotics, remote sensing, nitrogen and market access. Innovation Manager Doug Hamilton went looking for a narrower thing: what’s ready to deliver value for a WA producer’s business right now, and what it takes to get there.
Automation is moving from demonstration to daily use
The most convincing sessions came from producers already using equipment, not presenting a concept. A commercial case study from Coggan Farms, and a panel featuring operators from Western Australia and South Australia, showed autonomous machinery simply doing the work: covering more ground with the same team, running through weekends and holidays, and freeing skilled people for those jobs that need human experience and judgement.
Presenters were candid about what it takes to adopt these technologies and the hard numbers that prove adoption is worth it. An example here is how less than 1% of Halter virtual fencing collars fall off, compared to 6% on the earlier model collars.
Automation pays off for businesses that plan and measure their systems, get through the troubleshooting, and treat connectivity and clean data as essentials. It can ensure jobs are done at the right time. This is increasingly important in a drying climate, where the window for sowing, spraying and other key operations can be narrow. Getting these jobs done on time can have a significant effect on crop performance and help producers make the most of the conditions available.
There’s value sitting in the data you already have
Variable rate technology has been around for years, yet uptake is still patchy. Advisers said the barrier to adoption is less about the technology itself and more about whether the business case stacks up. Local evidence and trusted advice also play an important role in helping growers decide whether it is right for their farm.
The encouraging part is how low the barrier now is thanks to route-planning tools that any grower with GPS guidance can use to trim overlap, fuel and wasted travel, and SPAA’s national VRT program and adviser masterclass helping turn paddock data into decisions. Getting more of a return from inputs growers are already buying is one of the most practical options for building resilience to climate variability.
Virtual fencing opens up country you can’t crop
The standout for beef and mixed-farming producers was virtual fencing. Managing stock with GPS-guided collars, rather than building and maintaining permanent fences, lets livestock graze the parts of a property that don’t suit cropping: waterways, creek lines, timbered or broken country.
That, for croppers, turns unproductive ground into a diversified source of income, makes the benefits of rotational grazing more easily obtainable and gives mixed operations another lever to pull when the cropping season turns tough.
It’s commercially available and in use now. It does still require planning for water points and infrastructure and keeping an eye on when to move stock off or onto pastures. For now, at least!
Horticulture had its moments too, particularly in tree-crop health monitoring, though most of that is not yet ready for widespread adoption.
Not chasing the newest tool
The University of Sydney’s Patrick Filippi reinforced this take-home message: the technology is only ever an enabler. The producers getting results aren’t chasing the newest tool. They’ve built the systems, skills and confidence to use what’s already proven. Or, as automation advocate Jord Lee said, the missing link “isn’t the technology, but the mindset needed to work with it.” That’s a comfortable message for the grower-group model, which has always been about learning from each other and de-risking the next step together.
For the GGA network, the opportunity isn’t to buy the newest or most innovative gear. It’s to match a proven tool to a real problem, and lean on trusted advice and local evidence to decide whether a technology will suit a producer’s farming system. That’s exactly the space GGA and the South-West WA Drought Hub work in, and where the best returns will come from.
Get in touch with Doug or the GGA team if you would like more information. Presentations and resources from the symposium are available via the SPAA website.
Resources
- 2026 Australasian Symposium – Society of Precision Agriculture Australia (SPAA)
- VRT Project – Society of Precision Agriculture Australia (SPAA)
- Tutorial: Variable rate technology for nitrogen application to improve on-farm N – Stirlings to Coast Farmers
- Virtual fencing:
- Use of virtual fencing to build farm resilience – Dry Season Resources podcast
- Virtual fencing and drone monitoring: enhancing rangeland management through AgTech – Dry Season Resources podcast
- Virtual fencing: breaking down boundaries in livestock grazing – Dry Season Resources podcast
- Smart Grazing: Breaking down barriers to technology adoption in the Southern Rangelands – Dry Season Resources podcast