New telemetry to put Tasmanian farmers on front row of the grid

Tasmanian farmers will soon have access to online information that will be as valuable to them as on-board telemetry on a Formula One car is to its pit crew, chief executive of the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association Jan Davis said today.

Farmers would be among those with the most to gain from the new Sensing Tasmania (SenseT) network of sensors around the state whose federal funding was announced today as part of the Intergovernmental Agreement on forestry between the Australian and Tasmanian governments.

Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government Simon Crean announced a Commonwealth contribution of $3.6 million towards the $40 million program that is supported by the University of Tasmania, the CSIRO and the Tasmanian Government.

“What SenseT does is to network all the data that is received by sensors of all shapes and sizes around the state,” Ms Davis said.

“Some are on land, recording temperature, wind speed, soil carbon content; some are at sea recording ocean temperatures and sea conditions; some are as simple as a chip showing GPS and temperature information and that could be in a shipment of potatoes on its way to a market.

“What SenseT does is to make all that disparate information readily available; it meshes it into an accessible online network.

“Our mantra at the TFGA has been that the times they are a’changing. We are modern farmers who want the latest technology to optimise the way we produce our food and fibre, optimise the profitability and efficiency of our businesses.

“This is exactly what SenseT is all about,” Ms Davis said.

She said the Formula One analogy was apposite.

“Each lap, as it passes the pits, an F1 car uses telemetry to upload all sorts of data to the crew in the pits. That could be tyre temperatures, fuel efficiency, brake wear, not to mention the heart rate of the driver.

“By having immediate access to all that data, the pit crew, the managers of the team, can make decisions about its optimum performance and make the necessary tweaks.

“Tasmania is the F1 car in this analogy. All of the sensors within the SenseT network upload information to those who want access to it. What is useful to one segment of industry may be meaningless to another, but the data is all there.”

Ms Davis said SenseT had clear and definable benefits for agriculture, particularly fruit and viticulture and those industry sectors where detailed weather observations were critical.
“It to take agriculture to a new level of innovation and productivity,” Ms Davis said.
Jan Davis http://www.tfga.com.au/