Beef + Lamb New Zealand was looking for a hill country property to showcase technology and farming systems.
The location, budget and scope of the idea were yet to be confirmed but the plan was to find a farm and start by July 2018.
B+LNZ compared the concept to the dairy industry’s farm and research unit at Lincoln University and a university-owned farm at Armidale in New South Wales.
The farm would operate at the development end of a research and development continuum, project leader Richard Wakelin said.
But Lamb, from the University of New England, said its Smart (Sustainable Manageable Accessible Rural Technologies) farm was a cradle-to-grave operation.
The university had transformed Kirby-Newholme, a 2900ha commercial farm into a Smart farm.
Its commercial farms at Armidale were linked to an agri-tech demonstration unit and innovation centre running academic experiments, commercial trials and demonstrations. Operating costs were minimal because the farm was an extension of the university.
The Smart farm stated in the 1990s and the university now had about A$16 million of agri-tech on its books.
It had owned commercial farms in the area since the 1960s so adding the Smart farm had been seamless.
“It’s a living relationship with the real farm.”
The university also had relationships with 29 other farmers around Australia who hosted experiments, trials and technology displays.
Lamb, a physicist whose research interests included applied optics and precision agriculture, advised B+LNZ against splitting research and development on its prospective property.
The Smart farm, innovation centre and campus benefited from constant interaction with farmers and the public, he said.
“Research and development is a two-way process.”
He could not imagine how one farm or even a handful could test and show NZ’s diverse farming as well as a range of commercial wares.
Lamb said the university had no pre-determined thinking about what type of farming systems would be tested and displayed though the technology had to be broadly applicable.
The centre had to choose between about 100 types of drone, for example.
“We look at this through the lens of what could be used to educate the farming community.”
A $2m agri-tech building hosted about 5000 unsolicited public visitors in the past two years plus school groups, corporates and busloads of farmers turning up for meetings and field days.
“The programme is built as an educational adjunct to the uni. We were not prepared for it to become a tourist attraction.”
It was helping to promote Armidale businesses and capability in the bush.
The Smart innovation centre initially cost $3m to set up and the annual bill was now $100,000 as a proportion of ordinary university staff time.
The complex received grants and most of the workforce was voluntary.
“We’re running on the smell of an oily rag,” Lamb said.
MORE:
une.edu.au/research/research-centres-institutes/smart-farm/about-the-smart-farm
