Over the past ten years, Federation University Australia's Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI) has established a programmatic research program in the area of agriculture. This program is supported through partnerships with organisations including Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), grower groups nationally, the Victorian Government, Corangamite Catchment Management Authority and CSIRO. This presentation profiles a number of research initiatives that are associated with that program. CeRDI is able to bring both a production and catchment perspective to agriculture-related research. . Federation University Australia is a member of the Regional Universities Network (RUN), together with the University of New England, Southern Cross University, Southern Queensland University, Central Queensland University and University of the Sunshine Coast. In March 2015 the RUN Precision Agriculture Flagship was launched by the Hon. Barnaby Joyce MP. CeRDI represents Federation University Australia in the RUN Precision Agriculture Flagship. As part of its participation, CeRDI was successful in receiving two PhD scholarships. Chris Bahlo’s research is focused on advancing the management of livestock health using information systems and international standards for data exchange to be able to federate and exchange livestock health and management data from multiple organisations as well as disparate sensor technologies and proprietary systems using appropriate web-based technologies. Thomas Hill’s research is focused on the role that legacy data plays in farm decision-making and the adoption of best practice, and seeks to build greater insight into the nature and availability of agricultural legacy data, as well as the barriers and enablers for the sharing of legacy data and information.

1. Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation
Federation University Australia
CeRDI Research
Agriculture
August 2016

2. Centre for eResearch and
Digital Innovation
CeRDI -
www.cerdi.edu.au
~ 30 staff: multidisciplinary mix of
researchers, technical, support and
administration
Unaligned to Faculties - reports to DVCR

3. x =
CeRDI capability: eResearch
National
and
FedUni
research
priorities
CeRDI Government,
industry and
community
needs
Research
expertise
Technological
expertise
Real world
applications

4. CeRDI
Groundwater: Challenges and Strategies - 41st IAH International Congress, Marrakech, September 15-19, 2014 4
A variety of applications:
groundwater , soils, agriculture, biodiversity, fire, history,
sports, municipal, etc.
Allows integration of cross-disciplinary data sets
spatial.federation.edu.au
CeRDI capability: spatial data portals

5. CeRDI capability: example projects
www.vvg.org.au
 Broadband innovation grant 2011 - 2013
 Federates all Victorian groundwater data
 5 bore databases, spatial layers, EPA data
 Predictions on the fly
 User selected 3D visualisations
 Allows data exports
 Decision support tool for practitioners
 Research-ready data sets

6. CeRDI capability: example projects
Online Farm Trials – www.farmtrials.com.au
 GRDC funded 2012 - 2017
 All grains trials for Australia online
 Working with Grower Groups, government, industry
 Spatial filtering and selective keyword filtering
 Brings in climate data and soils data on-the-fly
 Allows data exports
 Decision support tool for agronomists & growers
 Research-ready data sets of all grain trials

7. CeRDI capability: example projects
Online Farm Trials – www.farmtrials.com.au

8. CeRDI capability: example projects
CropPro diagnostic & economic tools – www.croppro.com.au

9. CeRDI capability: example projects
Commodity price tools – agprice.grainandgraze3.com.au

10. CeRDI capability: example projects
Corangamite Soil Health Knowledge Base
www.ccmaknowledgebase.vic.gov.au/soilhealth
 Corangamite CMA funded 2012 - 2016
 Online portal that combines eLibrary of grey literature with web-GIS
 Over 3500 documents and 170 layers in the system (legacy data capture)
 Allows crowd-sourced soil test data (e.g. farm soil tests)
 Strongly supported by government, industry and community
 Allows data exports, screen capture as pdf, saved workspace links
 Decision support tool for farmers, agronomists, catchment managers, Landcare
 Research-ready data sets of soil and related information

11. CeRDI capability: example projects
Corangamite Soil Health Knowledge Base

12. CeRDI capability: example projects
Corangamite Soil Health Knowledge Base

13. CeRDI capability: current projects
Southern Farming Systems – Soil moisture probes

14. CeRDI capability: current projects
Department of Agriculture/CSIRO – Field Sense project

15. CeRDI capability in eResearch?
Collaborate with our research, industry and community partners:
To take advantage of the eResearch tools to:
 Interoperably integrate data (open data, research data, big data,
sensor data, legacy data, crowdsourced data… any data)
 Answer the frequently asked data/information questions
 Dynamically generate conceptual and predictive models
 Make new discoveries and avoid repeating past research
 Measure the impacts on decision making and facilitate practice
change

16. Third party e.g. ABARE, ABS, BOM, CSIRO, EPAs, Unis, ………State base mapping, etc.
Water agencies, research organisations, industry, individuals, etc.
End users, e.g. Browser, mobile application, desktop application, groundwater model, etc.
Used by: researcher, community group, farmer, environmentalist, media outlet, agribusiness, etc.
Output as:
web services (W3C, OGC
compliant)
Input as:
Data, map layers, grids, text
and imagery in native
format (or web services)
Citizen science
 Landcare,
environmental and
community groups
 landholders,
farmers, individuals
 tourists, visitors
 schools, TAFE,
University students
 clubs, volunteers
GIS
SQL
Sensors
Images
Documents
Organisational
data
Sounds
CeRDI capability: interoperability

17. CeRDI capability: example systems architecture

18. Further information
Annual reports
www.cerdi.edu.au/cb_pages/annual_reports.php
Websites
http://spatial.federation.edu.au and www.cerdi.edu.au
Short documentary films
NRM Planning www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQETGvo_G8w
Online Farm Trials www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr6pIYRqrb0
Visualising Victoria’s Groundwater
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w94pW1Jdic
Impact research publication
http://jh.iwaponline.com/content/early/2015/10/24/hydro.2015.169