SMARTfarm learning hub: Next generation precision agriculture technologies for agricultural education

The industry demands on higher education agricultural students are rapidly changing. New precision agriculture technologies are revolutionizing the farming industry but the education sector is failing to keep pace. This paper reports on the development of a key resource, the SMARTfarm Learning Hub (www.smartfarmhub.com) that will increase the skill base of higher education students using a range of new agricultural technologies and innovations. The Hub is a world first; it links real industry technologies with educator resources and student learning packages. This gives higher education providers and their student’s online access to data and systems from commercial scale smart-farms across Australia and the world. The SMARTfarm Learning Hub is based around a central landing page which provides links to cloud based technologies that are running over various university properties predominantly across Australia and the globe. Participating universities have farms with a diverse range of enterprises and environmental conditions from highly productive dairy systems in Tasmania to tropical production in North Queensland and the arid rangelands of New Mexico. This is real data from real agricultural landscapes, and is matched with learning materials developed to challenge student’s critical thinking and problem solving skills. Utilization of the SMARTfarm Learning Hub is tracked using the Square Space metrics tools. The SMARTfarm Learning Hub website was launched in mid-December 2015 and since this time has reached 535 unique visitors an average of 107 per month.