Pillar 1: Paddock

Theme: Data-driven decisions

Objective: 
Improve productivity, profitability, and sustainability by accurately monitoring and measuring every field on every cotton farm.

Impact: 
In 2028, a transparent and trusted data platform will deliver increased profitability and productivity through better decision-making, facilitating innovative research, and building trusted engagement.

Across agriculture and its supply chains, the demand for and value of data to describe, measure and monitor the production and processing of commodities is growing rapidly. Agriculture is on the cusp of a new digital wave, with the vast majority of digital transformation still to come.

A substantial amount of data are already collected and stored on farms and through the supply chain. However, the cotton industry needs more comprehensive, consistent, trustworthy, and reliable data that is centralised and linked to take full advantage of these opportunities.

Within the Data-driven decisions theme, CRDC will significantly increase its investment in data collection, management and analysis to help lead the industry's digital transformation. CRDC will develop a transparent and trusted industry-owned data platform of management and production data. CRDC has already invested in data collection and automation through pilot programs, and the industry trusts us in this role.

By collecting, sharing, managing and analysing the data, CRDC aims to find solutions to complex industry problems. More innovative research and greater trust and engagement across the farm and the supply chain will result. Australian cotton growers will be able to increase their productivity and profitability through improved data collection and data-driven insights.

In developing the new data platform, CRDC will also focus on the data layers and digitised farm data required to support the transition from equipment automation to intelligent autonomous farm operations. This process may identify important gaps in data and automation. Therefore, this theme will also focus on producing and deploying novel and existing surveillance and diagnostic tools to address data gaps. This theme will also establish and implement a digital strategy for Australian cotton in partnership with industry stakeholders. It will provide the industry with clear and cohesive management guidelines to encourage participation and sharing, and to position Australian cotton as the leader in data best practice. It will also greatly benefit growers by reducing demands on their time.

As well as delivering these outcomes, the data and insights generated by this theme will play a crucial role in the planning, progression and achievement of all themes of Clever Cotton.

Outcomes:

  • By 2023, a digital strategy for the Australian cotton industry is established
  • By 2025, a transparent and trusted industry-owned data platform of management and production data to support decision-making across the value chain is available
  • By 2026, management and production data are captured for 50 per cent of fields in the cotton industry
  • By 2027, new and existing surveillance and diagnostic tools that allow for more timely identification of threats and constraints are developed and deployed
  • By 2028:
    • Data are collected, shared, managed and analysed to solve industry problems at both a farm scale and a regional scale
    • Growers obtain greater productivity through improved analysis and insights of management and production data
    • Input costs and resource constraints are reduced through improved understanding and more timely decision-making
    • Yield improvement is maintained at 3 per cent year on year