Australia Agriculture: Benefits of automation technology for farmers

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Australia's agriculture industry is serving as a technology incubator to test new systems designed to benefit farmers around the globe.

From pepper-picking robots to smart tractors, those technologies share a common goal - making farming more efficient and more profitable.

Greg Navarro explains from Toowoomba in Queensland state.

Having grown up on a farm, Craig Baillie knows his way around the inside of a tractor. But unlike the traditional mechanical work horse - this vehicle doesn't need a driver and, more importantly, it has the ability to think about its surroundings.

"Essentially what we can do is tap into the electronics on this machine to control any feature or function."

Baillie and a team of agricultural engineers at the University of Southern Queensland have created a technology incubator with an eye on farming. They're working with multinational companies to develop new systems that can be applied to farms around the world. Baille says Australia is the perfect test site.

CRAIG BAILLIE, PROFESSOR UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND "Our farmers tend to operate in unprotected markets and so obviously pressured by world prices that are fairly low without subsidy and so what it means is that farmers in this country tend to be more innovative, they tend to have a greater thirst for technologies."

This tractor is being fitted with a system that allows it to water crops on its own. It can reflect on the job it has just done - and figure out what adjustments needy to be made to become more efficient.

GREG NAVARRO TOOWOOMBA "There's another advantage for Australia farmers in all of this and that is a lot of the technology being developed in this country is being created for their specific geographic needs, meaning ultimately, they will be able to maximise the benefits from that technology once it's available."

CRAIG BAILLIE, PROFESSOR UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND "We know that we operate in a slightly different climate to everybody else and yet if we are receiving technologies that have been developed in other parts of the world then they still need to go through that development phase to be able to be used here."

"This platform we call Harvey the capsicum harvester - we are not good at naming systems here."

What Chris Lehnert and other researchers at the Queensland University of Technology are highly skilled at - is creating robotic technologies. Harvey does just what its name suggests -it harvests fruit autonomously. While it may appear to replace human workers, Lehnert says Harvey can help solve a much broader problem.

CHRIS LEHNERT, LECTURER QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY "We are actually struggling to keep farmers in the jobs as well so farmers and growers are struggling at the bottom line about how much it costs them to grow fruit and really we are trying to give back to stabilising that industry, the agricultural industry and making sure growers can actually maintain their systems."

Baillie says the promise of stability and efficiency - are why Australian farmers have so far been receptive to serve as a kind of test market. They're showing that a future where this kind of technology plays an increasing role on the farm- is a lot closer than most people think. Greg Navarro, CGTN, Toowoomba.