Radar coverage key priority

WA's farmers need to effectively adopt new technologies if they are to become more productive and efficient over the next decade.

But the State's regional technology infrastructure needs to significantly improve for this to be possible.

This need for improvements in technology infrastructure has been identified in a draft strategy co-ordinated by the Grains Industry Association of WA, aimed at doubling the value of the WA grains industry over the next decade.

The two areas highlighted were radar coverage and communications infrastructure.

Work is already under way: the Department of Agriculture and Food WA has commissioned consultants AEC Group to prepare a business case and feasibility study for expanded digital coverage and Doppler radar coverage of the agricultural region.

Current radar towers in the WA grainbelt, each covering a 200km radius, are at Esperance, Geraldton and Albany, while a high-resolution Doppler radar is in Serpentine.

According to Coorow farmer and GIWA executive Rod Birch, this leaves many areas in the WA grainbelt with limited or no effective radar coverage; and hence little access to real-time accurate rainfall and wind data or other impending weather events.

Mr Birch said putting radar stations at Dalwallinu, Merredin and Lake Grace could fill the black holes and enable real-time rainfall and wind information across the entire WA grainbelt.

He said early estimates indicated the cost of building and maintaining these radars over the next decade would total about $20 million, which paled in comparison to the productivity and efficiency benefits that farmers could achieve as a result.

More detailed weather data would enable farmers to make informed chemical spraying applications, fertiliser application, and seeding and harvesting operations, as well as livestock management and protection.

"Severe weather monitoring could also help with asset protection, and strategic deployment of emergency services," Mr Birch said.

A key question is how such radar stations, which would be operated by the Bureau of Meteorology, would be funded.

Agriculture Minister Ken Baston recently told Parliament that Doppler radars were not a State responsibility and that the need to upgrade and expand WA's radar network had been raised with the Federal Government.

Mr Birch said the AEC report would be used as a basis to continue lobbying the Government for more radars.

Meanwhile, the WA grains industry is also frustrated with the lack of good internet data availability, despite improvements in recent years via a $39.3 million Royalties for Regions-funded project to improve mobile coverage and access to high-speed wireless broadband throughout regional WA.

That project involved 113 locations being rolled out over three years, aiming to provide reliable mobile coverage across the State's major roads and highways, from Eucla in the south to Wyndham in the north.

The final tower was recently installed at Manjimup West, with Commerce Minister Michael Mischin saying the project increased coverage by more than 22 per cent.

Mr Birch said while this project did offer vast improvements in some areas, the majority of towers thus far were in more mining-oriented areas and were focused along major roads (on the main roads), thus there were still significant black holes in rural WA's coverage, compared to eastern Australia and even some of third-world Africa.

"Currently there is very poor coverage to many of the grain production regions," Mr Birch said.

"But this kind of data access is very important in running our day to day businesses, for example banking and financial services, grain marketing and pricing opportunities.

"It also is necessary for the availability of phone based information services such as weather and radar, hundreds of apps, the use of precision agriculture and telemetry technology connectivity to plant and machinery."