Projects Underway
The SW WA Hub has helped to attract investment into the State that directly benefits producers and the agricultural industry. This has included providing information, guidance and co-design opportunities to many stakeholders that have applied for Australian Government Future Drought Fund (FDF) grant rounds.
The SW WA Hub has also successfully applied for new capacity building staff positions – Julianne Hill, Theo Nabben, Maddison McNeil, Jo Wisdom and Jenni Clausen (Jenni is based at SoilsWest, Murdoch University) – that will benefit farmers and their communities.
| Project Name | Lead | Description |
| WaterSmart Dams | GGA/SW WA Hub | Better understand how dams can function in dry years, and through co-design develop new farm water planning tools to create more drought-resilient farm enterprises and regional communities |
| Kondinin Group Drought Resilience for Agriculture Research Extension and Adoption program | Aspermont Limited | A comprehensive farmer-focused extension and adoption program aimed at seeking out the most successful drought-related techniques, strategies and technologies being used by farmers and agribusinesses around the country. |
| A Sustainable Weather Certificate Industry project | Arquus Pty Ltd | This project will establish a sustainable Weather Certificate Industry. |
| Wheatbelt Drought Resilience Small to Medium Enterprise Planning | Wheatbelt Business Network (Inc) | This project will engage with small and medium enterprises in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt region through workshops and one on-one focus sessions to develop Drought Resilient Plans. |
| The Benefits of Shelter Belts | Murdoch University | The project will undertake a comprehensive review to evaluate the use of shelterbelts in the South West region of Western Australia. |
| Revitalising the Drought Resilience of Western Australia’s Southern Rangelands | DPIRD | The project will implement and demonstrate mature drought resilience strategies and land management practices to pastoralists in WA’s Southern Rangelands, spanning 52.3 million ha |
| Making Every Drop Count – Below and Above Ground Targeted Soil Moisture Conservation from Paddock to Landscape | Mingenew – Irwin Group | The project demonstrates a combination of practices to improve drought resilience of cropping and grazing lands. This involves maintaining permanent groundcover by managing pasture legume systems, sowing techniques, stubble height and other elements. |
| Improving sowing opportunities for increased farm resilience in a changing climate | CSIRO | The project demonstrates the impacts on drought resilience of practices involving early sowing and optimal soil water storage. The program spans regions in WA, VIC, SA and NSW. |
| Drought resilient landscapes with profitable native shrub and legume systems across southern Australia | CSIRO | The project demonstrates the use of novel forage systems based on native shrubs and self-regenerating annual legumes to address feed gaps during drought. This will improve profitability and drought resilience of mixed farming and rangeland enterprises |
| Modern soil moisture monitoring to improve irrigation management | GGA/SW WA Hub | This project will establish on-farm demonstration sites at growers’ properties in WA, Northern Territory, and Victoria to build their capacity to strategically implement soil moisture monitoring. |
| Managing rangelands for drought resilience | Northern Hub | This project will demonstrate management strategies and technology to assist Rangelands producers to improve grazing management, pasture regeneration and water use efficiency, making their businesses more drought resilient. |
| Fast tracking WA and NT to align nutritional feed base mapping technologies | Northern Hub | This project will test and refine the Cibo Labs satellite-based biomass monitoring platform in WA and NT. |
| Value added lupin exports | DPIRD | Establishment of an incorporated lupin value-adding syndicate to advance the production and export of lupin food ingredients, finished food products and concentrated livestock feeds. |
| Digital Edge: Next generation agribusiness analytics for the Eastern Wheatbelt | Curtin University | Deploying the next generation of agribusiness models aimed at improving climate resilience in the eastern wheatbelt of WA by targeting profitability and sustainability at paddock, farm and farm enterprise scale. |
| Avondale First People’s Traditional Produce Innovation and Manufacturing Hub | Noongar Land Enterprise Group | The Avondale First People’s Traditional Produce Innovation and Manufacturing Hub (‘Avondale Hub’), a commercially viable not-for-profit organisation, will support existing and aspiring Noongar and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander traditional produce entrepreneurs to develop and grow traditional produce businesses. |
| Agtech decoded: growers critically analysing the role of new technology in on-farm decision making | Liebe Group | The objective of this project will be to critically assess the ability of modern data analytics to address farming system challenges and improve in-season decision making when faced with a variable climate. |
| Paddock Level Carbon Benchmarking | Farmanco | Development and implementation of Clean Energy Australia-approved University of Melbourne GAF10.4 (and future updated versions of the same) Carbon Calculator within a cloud-based data capture and benchmarking platform. |
| Reducing technical barriers for malting barley market access using innovative technology | AEGIC | This project will generate value to barley growers, barley breeders and the entire barley industry by supporting a faster pathway to market and market acceptance of new higher yielding barley varieties. |
| Implementing improved vineyard floor management for premium grape production | UWA | This project partners with Wines of Western Australia, the Agricultural Produce Commission (Table Grapes), and directly with at least four leading WA growers, to test and demonstrate whether cover crops can be used in vineyards to address this challenge. |
| Drone-Mounted Feral Species Recognition System | Southern Rangelands Pastoral Alliance | This project aims to use a drone mounted species recognition system to locate and visually record feral animal species that contribute negatively to total grazing pressure. |
| Developing automated technology to assess natural capital on pastoral leases | Southern Rangelands Pastoral Alliance | This project will develop automated technologies for the assessment of the natural capital elements of biodiversity and soil organic carbon to remove the current human requirements which impact resources, time and costs. |
| Supporting the adoption of biodegradable mulch technology in vegetable and perennial fruit enterprises | DPIRD | Demontrating a novel, semi-commercialised Sprayable Biodegradable Polymer Membrane (SBPM) developed by CSIRO. |