Third time lucky was the motto of the day at the Tasmanian Precision Ag Expo, which got off the ground on Monday after COVID delays.
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The expo was held at Hagley Farm School, but it's usually held in April, ahead of Agfest, to maximise the machinery traders.
However, the 2020 event was uncertain, due to travel restrictions. Still, the Tasmanian Agricultural Productivity Group was able to modify the event to ensure it could go ahead in a COVID-safe way.
TAPG member and expo organiser Terry Brient said patron numbers were down slightly due to the event being held on a public holiday, but he said the committee needed to secure this date or postpone.
"We expected numbers to be a bit down, but it's been not too bad throughout the day," he said.
One of the primary aims of the expo is to upskill the future workforce and prepare them for the benefits of machinery, and other technology can have on a working farm.
Mr Brient said it was partly the reason TAPG had such a healthy and positive relationship with Hagley Farm School.
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"It was something we realised, that if we were going to maximise productivity through machinery and technology, we needed to upskill the future workforce," he said.
"Which really brought us towards the education space."
He said plans were to include more students in the expo, but the timing of it this year was prohibitive but would be next year.
Mr Brient said Tasmania was the envy of other states due to its comprehensive and widespread agricultural career paths and while there was some excellent work going on, there's more to do.
"We think there's more cohesiveness that could be done, to bring those pathways together," he said.
TAPG will investigate how to bring those agricultural education pathways together in a new scoping paper, announced at the expo.
The TAPG precision ag expo is funded by the Tasmanian Government and is held each year at Hagley Farm School.