TASMANIAN farmers had gained an enormous headstart with the early rollout of NBN in the state, Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association chief executive Jan Davis said.
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Ms Davis was commenting on the connection earlier this week of more than 4300 premises in Launceston and another 19 rural communities across the state.
"They are well ahead of the rest of the country," Ms Davis said.
"The NBN revolutionises farming like no other industry - it starts from the most efficient use of our soil, water and climate and permeates through every level of the business through packaging, processing, marketing and, on the return journey, financial services and education back to the farmhouse."
Ms Davis said the NBN was of particular significance to Tasmania because it facilitated the Sensing Tasmania network of sensors that combined with existing mapping data to give a digital view of the economy, with particular application to agriculture, aquaculture, viticulture and water management.
"A new CSIRO report, Smart Farming, found that the NBN and mobile sensor technologies like Sense-T could transform the Australian agribusiness sector," she said.
"It does this through the use of technologies such as cloud computing to share information, special farming apps and sensors that track pasture vegetation, soil moisture, livestock movements and farm equipment.
"But the report also noted that farmers had been a bit lax in adopting emerging communications technologies, for example making full use of the internet in the home and smartphone applications."
Ms Davis said that explanations for that included the lack of universal availability, cost, capability and reliability, but a recent survey into information technology uptake and usage by TFGA members indicated that farmers here who were able to get reliable access were using the internet for a variety of business and social activities.