Charles Sturt University (CSU) is devoting more than $50 million to agricultural research projects and facilities. Here, Jackson Haddad takes a deep dive into the various investments
CSU’s history lies deep in educating students and farmers, with the university’s origins dating back to 1895 when an experimental farm was established in Bathurst, New South Wales.
Since then, the university has grown considerably by establishing new centres of learning and research, merging with other education providers and partnering with industry and government.
That dedication to learning continues with the recent investment of $50 million into agricultural research, to be facilitated through its Agrisciences Research and Business Park (AgriPark), as well as key industry and government partners.
Founded in Wagga Wagga, NSW, Agri-Park is an innovation precinct that has been established within the university.
The precinct currently runs across multiple campuses, integrating agricultural technologies and science with university students – allowing them to further their learning.
When asked why such a significant amount of money was invested and facilitated through the precinct, AgriPark executive director Nick Pagget says it came down to a gap in the industry.
“We saw there was a gap around the adoption of technology and understanding the implications of technology and science, in an agricultural and commercial context,” he says.
“There’s a gap in the industry, understanding the impact of the sectors that we have invested in.”
Educating students with agricultural technologies is a form of learning that Pagget says can’t be replicated with just a textbook.
“We are the largest agricultural educator in Australia, and we want student cohorts to be able to use the latest technologies and operating systems,” he says.
Pagget says AgriPark aims to bring the outside world into the university, to partner and work on various agricultural tasks.
“We also want the industry to come and see these technologies so we can showcase activities that they may not have seen before,” he says.
Global Digital Farm
This approach will be led by the largest of the various investments, a $22 million contribution over three years for projects at AgriPark’s Global Digital Farm.
Located at CSU’s Wagga Wagga campus, Global Digital Farm is a 1,600-hectare commercial farm, showcasing the latest available agricultural technologies.
A key focus of the commercial farm is to test and validate new technologies in a research and commercial setting.
“Our farming operations have been saturated with the latest available technologies, such as autonomous tractors, drones, soil sensor systems, methane sensors, cattle remotes and autonomous cattle feeding systems,” Pagget says.
Global Digital Farm also tries to find and expand on new technologies, putting them into a farming operation to understand how they work and how useful they can be.
$22 million will go a long way in the next step for the commercial farm, which is to simulate multiple technologies and variables occurring in a digital sense, and then replicating that in a physical sense.
“We want to understand what impacts nutritional supplements have on methane, but also the weather conditions in which we’re operating – all of those variables coming together into a simulation model.”
Renewables in Agriculture Program
A further $20 million will also be invested over three years into the Renewables in Agriculture Program.
There are two aspects to this program, with the first focusing on how agriculture can produce raw materials for energy production.
But rather than focusing on solar and wind power, the program is researching if waste streams such as manure from feedlots can be turned into energy such as hydrogen, biogas or biodiesel.
“We want to work out if there is a way to get hydrogen production at a scale that can operate on individual farming operations,” he says.
The second aspect to this program, he adds, is finding a use for any energy produced, such as tractors being powered by hydrogen.
“The intent is if we’re going to produce hydrogen in a regional context, then we’re going to use it, so what would we use it for,” he says.
“We’re probably going to use it in the transport fleet, but that’s pretty much the trucks that go up and down the highway and there’s companies already working on that.”
According to Pagget, there are already hydrogen tractors in Europe and one of the reasons they aren’t yet established in Australia is because of a lack of hydrogen production facilities well-established to support it.
The Renewables in Agriculture Program will look to create a production site as part of the investment with the possibility of bringing the first hydrogen tractor to Australia in the future.
Currently, this program is looking at covered solar, with CSU installing solar panels across its vineyard operations to look at dual-use activities.
“This solar will be used to create hydrogen, not just electricity. The tractor would be an example of a hydrogen generator which are currently driven from solar electricity or diesel,” he says.
“We want to know what it would look like if we had an alternate fuel source, such as hydrogen and how would you then use a hydrogen generator.”
Circularity Centre of Excellence
Continuing the renewables theme, CSU will also invest $8 million to go towards a circularity Centre of Excellence being developed in Wagga Wagga.
The aim of this centre is to create a circular ecosystem that takes outputs from one sector and integrates it into inputs for the same or other sectors.
“A lot of what we do in renewables, is looking at taking waste streams out of an animal processing facility or a feedlot, and converting that into energy,” Pagget says.
As part of this investment the centre will look to identify where there are opportunities to create a circular environment.
“The circularity Centre of Excellence will support the research and demonstration that enables the industry to make investment decisions to change their operating models to adapt more circular activities.”
Cool Soils Initiative
Rounding out the investments is $10 million to support various projects in the Cool Soils Initiative.
Cool Soils is essentially a greenhouse gas calculator that looks at scope three emissions – those indirect emissions created off-farm that arise from various aspects of a company’s supply chain, travel and other related activities.
Paggett says scope three emissions are becoming a mandatory component of reporting for export market access, as well as for future regulatory requirements.
“A lot of businesses are going to have to declare their scope three emissions in the coming years,” he says.
“This is why we’ve established a calculator that looks at the Australian conditions and calculates scope three emissions for agricultural businesses, based on the inputs.
“What’s important to this calculator is that we’re not just looking at recording the rating, because that’s just a single snapshot in time.
“What we’re working towards is a facilitated program to support practice change, within agricultural producers to actually reduce their emissions,” he says.
Pagget would like to see an industry that is able to achieve net-zero emissions through practice change as opposed to buying offsets.
As part of this program, supply chain partners are actively involved such as Kellogg’s, Mars, PepsiCo and Manildra.
“They’re all key partners in this program because their requirement is to show a reduction in scope three emissions from their supply sources.”
CSU says feedlots have only been developed for cattle to date, but they plan on developing one for sheep. Image: Jacy/stock.adobe.com
Feedlots
In addition to these investments, CSU’s Red Meat Innovation Centre is developing a feedlot of the future for sheep in Wagga Wagga.
The AgriPark executive director says that feedlots continue to be a large growth sector the red meat industry. To date, these types of feedlots have only been developed for cattle, according to CSU.
AgriPark plans to open a contained, fully automated feeding facility that can house 1,500 sheep.
With this volume of sheep, the facility won’t be able to be covered due its sheer size, but shading will be provided.
Pagget says the facility will have digitised measurements to check weight gains of the animals.
“It will also look at methane and other gas production systems, measuring things like runoff and waste streams so that in times of drought we can understand how to switch to a contained feeding model for a sheep farm,” he says.
Using the principles from the Global Digital Farm, AgriPark is also looking at developing feedlots of the future that aim to have the latest available agricultural technologies.
“We’re looking at digital systems such as facial recognition for sheep which will enable us to tackle traceability without tags, but also in understanding the animal behaviours relative to the conditions they’re living in.”
Looking ahead, Pagget would like to see AgriPark showcasing technologies to students and the industry that may not have seen before – setting them up well for the future.
“We’re trying to bring the best technologies into the precinct and create an environment for our students to learn and conduct research activities,” he says.