RDC Research Project identifies $20b opportunity in Digital
16/1/2018The first ever universal cross-sector collaboration of all 15 rural research and development corporations (RDCs) has delivered some very promising results.
The first ever universal cross-sector collaboration of all 15 rural research and development corporations (RDCs) has delivered some very promising results.The 2017 project called Precision to Decision (P2D) looked at latent opportunities across all primary industries to adopt digital decision-making tools.
The potential identified in the report for updating all analogue to digital production models estimated an average increase of 25% across all primary industries. A total productivity increase in the vicinity of $20 billion.
P2D was led by the Cotton Research Development Corporation in collaboration with the Australian Farm Institute.
The report’s results are centred around two ideas: pinpointing opportunities in specific industries by scale and location and detailing a path for government reform to streamline underutilised digital opportunities.
Richard Heath from the Australian Farm Institute led the research team in identifying the opportunities. Recommendations that resulted from the project included a new Australian Digital Architecture Taskforce and support for securing data speeds and open access to data sets relevant to decision making.
Mr Heath identified a lack of big data analysis and on-farm connectivity as responsible for putting Australia at a disadvantage in relation to the rest of the world in the rural sectors.
“We’ve now got a pathway to transform Australian farm business management and decision making through effective digital agriculture adoption. We just need to act,” Mr Heath said.
Part of the project conducted by the CSIRO identified underutilisation of farm analytical software and poor on-farm connectivity as key gaps.
While 89pc of respondents collect at least one type of farm data, only 19pc said they used specialist farm software to manage it.
Visit www.farminstitute.org.au/P2Dproject