Dr Balwinder Singh1, Dr Rodrigo Pires1, Matthew Antulov1, Michelle Condy2, Alison Lacey2, Wes Lawrence3, Dr Julia Easton4, Prof Adam Sparks4
1Department of Primary Industries and Rural Development, 2Grower Group Alliance, 3Axistech, 4Curtain University
Biography:
Balwinder is experienced system modeler, aiming to use system models in an intelligent way to explore the profitability, sustainability, and risk reduction potential of technological options under contemporary and future climate scenarios. He has more than 10 years’ experience of managing project ranges from developing precision farming concept for smallholders to strategies for coping with climate variability, optimizing tradeoffs at the food-energy-water nexus, and developing ‘big data’ reconnaissance networks for technology targeting and investment prioritization. His core technical skills include field agronomy, cropping system modelling, and environmental information systems to enhance decision-making in agriculture.
Abstract:
Collecting and exchanging farm data in a trusted environment is a major challenge for farmers to make data-driven decisions. To incentivise sharing data off the farm, we created an API-based decision support tool for whole farm liming that provides security, privacy and trust. Data sharing agreements are used to ensure that all data is safely and securely handled and not shared with unintended parties. Secure data transfers are initiated by the farmers through DPIRD’s data exchange platform, Extrata, for use in the tool with reports and data returning via Extrata. The tool uses Monte Carlo simulations to generate several possible outcomes accounting for grain yield and farm-gate price changes while being specific to a farm’s data. The report provides the whole farm’s responses to different liming strategies with comparisons highlighting the best and worst cases, and most likely outcomes of each liming strategy. Here we present results that show that the strategy of 4t incorporated to 20cm had an average 5 year ROI of 165% per hectare, 1t per 10 years returned an average 10 year ROI of 340% per hectare. Whereas the greatest average annual cashflow of $188.88 per hectare was from a liming strategy of 4 t Incorporated to 20 cm + 1 t in Year 10. The results show different financial outcomes and allow the farmer to pick the best one for their situation.