The extension of GPS technology to cover most Victorian grain farms could create more than $500 million in economic benefits over the next 20 years. That’s the conclusion of a study by Allen Consulting Group in the latest edition of Landmark, the magazine of Victoria’s spatial information industry. The use of global positioning system technology allows farmers to practise "controlled traffic farming", which is a form of precision agriculture.
Farmers use the network of 24 satellites circling above the earth to plough, seed and harvest their crops with breathtaking accuracy. Ground receivers use the data from the satellites and transfer the information to a GPS receiver fitted to the farmer’s tractor or harvester. This allows the farmer to perform tasks to an accuracy of just two centimetres.
The Allen study assumed extending the GPSnet to all the Mallee, the Wimmera and the state’s south-west and north. It also assumed a 10 per cent rise in crop yields, lower variable input costs and savings in capital machinery costs.
The study estimated an economic benefit of $418 million over 20 years — $382 million from increased crop yields and input cost savings, $18 million saved in machinery capital expenses, and a further $18 million benefit from reduced greenhouse emissions. The total gross figure is equivalent to an annualised benefit of $36 million. If average crop yields rose by 15 per cent, the benefits of GPSnet would rise to $567 million, the study said. It noted that controlled traffic farming has increased yields by between 5 and 50 per cent, depending on the type of crop and the cropping farm location.
To use the system, the farmer just hops on the tractor and turns on the computer, which has a memory for each paddock. The tractor largely steers itself. The extraordinary accuracy means a farmer knows exactly how much fuel, fertiliser and chemicals to use. Sowing and harvesting lines are dead straight. No patch of earth is missed, so no areas for weeds are created. Sowing can be interrupted for whatever reason, but the farmer knows exactly where to take up the work again. If it is too windy to spray during the day, the computer-driven technology enables farmers to work at night. Computerisation means the tractor’s wheel tracks go down the same line every single time, minimising compaction of the soil and allowing it to become healthier.
Victoria’s GPSnet system, which has a network of 30 reference stations, is operated and managed by the spatial information infrastructure branch of the Department of Sustainability and Environment.
Seven new stations will be built this financial year, and the Commonwealth Government plans to build three stations in Victoria that would become available to GPSnet.
Some form of controlled traffic farming is now used on about 1 million hectares of Australian farm land, with about 100,000 hectares in Victoria. This is less than 0.5 per cent of the area used from cropping and mixed livestock/cropping in Victoria.