This year, a Katunga water tech business has achieved just that.
AGMAC Automation started in 2011 as a home-grown product, designed to self-water Shaun McCarthy’s lucerne crop while he travelled across Victoria and the Riverina for work.
Seeing the potential in it, he switched from manufacturing bird scarers for vineyards and orchards and gave automated irrigation a crack.
“I could see that’s where things were going,” Mr McCarthy said.
“It was just for myself, but a couple years later we started marketing it and it’s grown from there.”
The first adopter was Kyabram dairy farmer Paul Price in 2013.
“Paul saw the benefit to automation and around that time there was a bit of government money too, which helped out,” Mr McCarthy said.
“Marcus Flanagan was second.”
Mr Flanagan manages a growing herd of 588 cows and 350 ha of irrigated cropping land at Woodlawn Dairy Co.
“It’s a great system,” Mr Flanagan said of the AGMAC infrastructure on his Finley farm.
“Just one guy working for one hour, and you’ve watered the entire farm.”
Mr McCarthy was well aware Mr Flanagan was a keen adopter.
“Marcus has rung me from the US before to say he’s watering. ‘Mate I’m sitting in New York watering the paddock at the moment’,” he said.
At the start most farmers were taking baby steps with the technology — getting a timer here or a bay sensor there — but Mr McCarthy said more people were now asking for full automation straight away.
“Our system is modular so you can build on it. Start with timers, add a radio frequency board, then computerise it. You can start slowly,” he said.
“I wanted to stay true to the farmers, I was a farmer myself — more of a hobby farmer mind you — but I developed it for myself because some of the other stuff was too expensive, so I didn’t want to be selling it at that higher level price, I wanted to keep it as low as it can be.”
AGMAC equipment is also Australian-made, with the steel fabrication coming from Tatura and the plastics and circuit boards from Dandenong.
“Being a local company, we pride ourselves on our backup services,” Mr McCarthy said.
He said technology was always changing and AGMAC was often in the process of developing something newer and better — such as a radio frequency system capable of boosting the current range of AGMAC’s system.
The technology is being trialled on a Griffith property where a client wants to fully automate a block 50 km away from his house.
“Certain people have specific requests, and if I can see merit in that request, I go ahead and develop it,” Mr McCarthy said.
Development is done with other electronic engineers Mr McCarthy has good working relationships with, particularly an engineer in Melbourne working with Electronic Designs by SEBA.
“The main feedback we’re getting is, ‘I wish I’d done this ages ago’ you know,” Mr McCarthy said.
AGMAC Automation can be reached at 0427 561 956 or agmacautomation@outlook.com
17°C