THE DATA farm at Longerenong is one step closer to offering students and farmers training in farming technologies with a supplier secured to provide equipment.
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Skillinvest chief executive Darren Webster signed an agreement with LX founder and director Simon Blyth to procure equipment such as weather stations, soil moisture probes and drones for the site.
The state government committed $2.5 million to the project in Octotober 2018, which will see a 1000-hectare demonstration farm for new agricultural technologies developed at Longerenong College.
Data Farm project manager Bryan Matuschka said the project was about "demystifying technology" and reducing the barriers to the adoption of precision farming such as cost and confusion.
"New tech can be easy, it doesn't have to be daunting," he said. "The farm will help our students learn skills to make them employable and ready for the modern industry but will also be an opportunity for local growers to learn about new tools"
"The whole idea about the demonstration farm is that they (local farmers) don't have to delve into it, we're doing that part, they just have to come along have a look and then they can make some decisions about whether it is going to be relevant on their farm."
Mr Matuschka said works were also going ahead on an innovation centre at the college with the project set to be completed and implemented into the teaching program by August this year.
Longerenong College principal John Goldsmith said he was "really excited" about implementing the next stage of the educational initiative and that the relationship with Mr Blyth was a "great fit".
"It was an exhaustive selection process," he said. "(Simon) has a good understanding of agriculture, is very entrepreneurial and has a huge amount of enthusiasm."
Mr Blyth said having grown up on a far in Inverell in northern New South Wales he was "personally invested in food production demands".
"Precision farming is about pushing the envelope," he said. "I want to give Australia a good platform to understand and develop technologies that make farming methods more efficient and productive.
"One of the core principles is that if you can measure and detect things in high resolution then you can learn and refine processes and improve performance."
The data farm was a key priority of the Wimmera Southern Mallee Regional Partnership, while the Wimmera Development Association and Birchip Cropping Group helped develop the project.
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