Transcript - Doorstop interview, Forthside Tasmania

ANNE URUQUART, SENATOR FOR TASMANIA: Thanks very much, everyone, for being here. I'm Anne Urquhart, Labor Senator for Tasmania. Here we are in beautiful Forthside on the farm of Mike Badcock, beautiful view behind us. And I'm really excited to be here with Michelle Rowland, the Minister for Communications, and we're here to talk about the On Farm Connectivity Program which is an amazing program that has basically going to change the lives of many farmers and the way that they operate, give them, you know, prospects into how they can get the best out of their land, because that's really important nowadays, and the best out of their crops. So, I'll hand over to Michelle.
 
MICHELLE ROWLAND, MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Thanks so much, Anne. Australia's primary producers have always been great innovators, and the Albanese Government has recognised this by establishing and funding the On Farm Connectivity Program. This was actually a recommendation of one the regional telco inquiries that came out some years ago but was never acted on by the previous Government. In contrast, we opened the first round of On Farm Connectivity grants with around $15 million, we increased that second round to $18 million, and I'm very pleased to announce here today that we will be opening a third round of the On Farm Connectivity Program with $20 million worth of grants.
 
What this program actually does is it assists primary producers to subsidise their needs in equipment, in smart technology, in order to make their farming processes more efficient, safer, and also to keep up with that technology that makes them more productive, is more efficient, and produces better yields. So, I'm so delighted today to be announcing a new round of this program. I'm very delighted also to be working with key stakeholders like the National Farmers' Federation and the Regional Tech Hub, who have been so instrumental in helping to guide this program which has actually never been done by any government before.
 
It goes to show how popular this has been with a demand driven program in two rounds, really demonstrating that there is enormous uptake for this. We expect this third round to be equally well subscribed, and this all goes towards what the National Farmers' Federation is aiming to achieve with a $100 billion output in farm productivity by 2030. All of this goes towards making our farms and our farming processes far more efficient, making sure that there are world class and that our farmers have that access to technology and connectivity solutions where they may not have before. This includes everything from water and soil monitoring, to being able to count the number of heads of different animals, but also making connectivity more efficient and making their processes safer. It saves them money and it helps them to do their jobs better, and that's what it's all about.

This comes on the back of our announcement yesterday as a Government to finish the job of fixing the NBN. We are injecting up to $3 billion in equity to ensure that last 622,000 premises around Australia that have been stranded on copper actually have access to world class fibre, and that includes some 21,000 premises here in Tasmania, 19,000 of which are in our regions. All this goes towards demonstrating the Albanese Government being future focused, to make sure that we have greater efficiency, greater productivity and greater quality of life in building a better Australia, including right here in Tasmania.
 
I'll hand over to Kristen from the Regional Tech Hub, who's been instrumental in supporting this program and making sure the message gets out to our primary producers.
 
KRISTEN COGGAN, REGIONAL TECH HUB: I'm Kristen Coggan from the Regional Tech Hub and we are so excited about this announcement, Minister. This makes a real difference for farmers to be able to really delve in and get that connectivity sorted on their properties and their farms. Without connectivity, the rest of it doesn't happen. So, it's a great opportunity for farmers to really take advantage of the program, get the correct connectivity sorted for their properties and, at the Regional Tech Hub we can help you do that. We have a wide range of resources for on farm connectivity on our website, and we're a free and independent service, and you can call us at any time to get some information. So, it'll just help farmers get to that point where they can start thinking about it and researching and start knowing where they need to go.
 
JOURNALIST: What are some of the examples of the resources that farmers are able to access through the Tech Hub?
 
COGGAN: We have some interactive maps on our website about different farm tech that can be used on different examples, whether it's a horticultural farm, a cattle farm, a cropping farm. We have links to different services that are available. There's also great case studies on there about other farmers who have taken the opportunity to get the connectivity on their properties, and they're working smarter, not harder. I know in our particular situation, being able to upload data on the spot during the day rather than having to go home at night and do it, that saves us a lot of time. So, it's those sort of things that we have resources there on how to do that.
 
JOURNALIST: James, I might just start with your first and last name.
 
JAMES TERRY, FARMER: James Terry.
 
JOURNALIST: Perfect. And you benefited from this- from the previous program is that correct?
 
TERRY: Yeah. The first round, yes.
 
JOURNALIST: I guess tell us how it helped you and how it assisted you on your farm.
 
TERRY: Yeah. So I was fortunate enough to be in the first round of the On Farm Connectivity Program, and I put in an on farm weather station and a soil probe for monitoring irrigation and live- exact what weather is happening in that paddock at that moment. So for me, I don't live exactly on the farm where I am, and it enables me to connect and understand exactly what the weather conditions are at that given moment in time. I'd love to have more weather probes in cropping paddocks because it really helps with a lot of irrigation decision making, which is vital because of the water being on- in my circumstance, a limiting resource.
 
JOURNALIST: How big of a difference has this made to your overall productivity on that particular farm?
 
TERRY: So the weather station is just- yeah, it's just amazing, really. I've always been a person that's loved technology, and to be able to sit at home and see what the actual live weather is and make decisions, can you spray, can you not spray, can you spread, can you not?  It's just- it's great to be able to have that information live at your fingertips. It also helps for record keeping and auditing processes on farm because- so last week, for example, I had an audit. I was able to log in and see exactly what the weather conditions were at any given moment in time when I had or one of my staff had operated and sprayed. So yeah, it's fantastic for that sort of thing. Also, from an irrigation management perspective, it really helps to be able to get good decision making and improve crop yields.
 
JOURNALIST: And was the implementation of this weather station- did that open you up to, I guess, your farm to be more sustainable?
 
TERRY: Yeah, definitely it does. Like you have- the more data that the farmers can capture, the better. The world's changing for agriculture, and we have to have a lot more resources, and we have to be able to collect a lot more data. We have to be smarter, and we have to do things in a way that it is more sustainable environmentally. So it's- yeah, on a whole range of levels there. I mean, I would love to be participating in the third round of the program just because then I can do other things other than the weather station that I've already been lucky enough to have, but it's yeah, some other irrigation management tools is probably the biggest area that I would like to get into if I'm successful on the third round.
 
JOURNALIST: Is this specific funding- is it essential for farmers to be able to invest in these sort of technologies?
 
TERRY: A lot of it, I would describe it as probably nice to have, but it's once you actually get access to it, it's- it becomes vital. So I would probably put myself in those shoes like two years ago when I got the weather station, I probably wouldn't have done it at that moment had I not had the money there from the grant, but because it was available, I went ahead and did it. Now I've got it I was like, wow, I’d hate to live without that now. So it's probably that's the circumstance that I would find a lot of farmers would be in.
 
JOURNALIST: Tell us just a bit more about your farm. What do you do there?
 
TERRY: So yeah. So I've got a farm at Wesley Vale. A couple of years ago, it was just a small farm that I owned, and as of June this year, I started leasing a larger farm at Wesley Vale. So I grow broccolini, broccoli, and then a range of crops in northern Tassie. Potatoes, pyrethrum, carrots, onions. I've got some sheep and cattle as well.
 
JOURNALIST: So it's helpful for a large range of different farming applications?
 
TERRY: Yeah. Entirely. You know, like remote water monitoring for stock is something that I would love to install because the farm’s quite large and it’s spread out and if you’re on a weekend and you don’t have staff there… The old school mentality like I grew up on a farm where dad worked every single day so he goes around, checks the stock every single day and a of that is checking water or checking the cattle or sheep are in a paddock, whereas you can do all that remotely now. You just have to have the financial ability to afford it and the want to actually install and work with it until you get the teething problems through in your business.
 
JOURNALIST: What are the flow on effects like for the broader community?
 
TERRY: Well, I mean, I think agriculture’s a great space and like the more of this sort of thing that happens, the more it will attract young people into agriculture because everyone that's young or coming through uni now or graduating from school, they like to have technology involved. I think the old school mentality is farmers don't have a lot of technology. Farming as a community doesn't have that. But the more we can get technology involved and more remote monitoring, the better it'll be. I think the other thing that farming has, it touched on earlier lifestyle was never a fantastic thing. So that's one thing that this enables. Like I said, I don't live on the farm, but I'm able to connect with the farm at what's happening in that moment based on the little bit of technology that I have, and over time, I'd like to get a lot more.
 
JOURNALIST: Sounds like something that is a bit of a competitive process, being a grants thing. You're up against other farmers in Tasmania. The Government is making decisions on exactly who gets this funding. Do you think it should be something that is applied to all farmers, is accessible, or is it a competitive grants program more appropriate in your mind?
 
TERRY: I don't know, like I was successful the first round, not the second because I was too late with an application, but, yeah, I mean, there's got to be a way to limit it in some way, and I don't know, I'm not necessarily a political person. So it's hard for me to say exactly what the best method would be. But yeah, I mean –
 
JOURNALIST: [Interrupts] Do you think it should be available to all your peers, though?
 
TERRY: Yeah, I think so, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely certain criteria to be met and things like there's got to be criteria in place, I don't know off the top of my head what they all are, but it's- I think it's fairly broad spectrum. Am I right in saying that? I think it is. Yeah. So I- it- technically it is available, I think. I mean, there's certainly a criteria around it, but yeah, I think it's fairly available to most people.
 
JOURNALIST: Thanks. Thank you so much. Great, James.