Hydrogen tractor, feedlots of future in CSU's $50 million ag plan

Charles Sturt University (CSU) announced on Monday it would be facilitating just shy of $60 million into Agrisciences Research and Business Park (AgriPark) and key industry partners which would revolutionise the Australian agriculture industry.

Of the more than $50 million, $22 million will be invested into Global Digital Farm projects, an integrated digital learning, innovation and research environment working within a full scale, commercial, mixed farm operation, with a view to taking the farm off-grid, over a three-year period.

Also over three years $20 million will go to various renewables program projects, including bringing the first hydrogen tractor to Australia, and showing farmers how to adopt new renewable technology in a commercial setting.

The remaining $10 million will go across various projects in the Cool Soils Initiative, which supports farmers in exploring their practices to improve the health of their soil, increase their yield, and reduce on- farm greenhouse gas emissions.

This program is being expanded into Western Australia for the first time.

Another $8 million will go towards developing a circularity Centre of Excellence in Wagga.

CSU AgriPark Director Nick Pagett said it comes as "very positive" news not just for the university but for the sector and regional Australia.

"The key will be really trying to increase the level of investment in regional Australia from industry and government because this is a partnership model so we're investing one third of the funding and then having partners for all of the programs sitting underneath," he said.

"It's really great to see it as a mechanism to showcase the ag sector and regional sectors and to explore how big these emerging issues the sectors are facing to actually develop solutions, and to showcase how we can increase the adoption of digital technology and digital literacy across not only our producing communities but also our student communities and making sure they're more technically capable in the workforce in the future.

"The same goes for emergent renewables.

"They enable the ag ecosystem to become hopefully a more profitable, more sustainable and therefore as a consequence employing more people but probably in many ways employing different people too so people with different skillets and the industries that then support the producers, which becomes the economic hub of a lot of communities, strengthens and grows as they adapt to supporting new ways of working."

In addition to these projects, CSU's Red Meat Innovation Centre is helping to develop a feedlot of the future for sheep in Wagga. To date, these feedlots have only been developed for cattle.

CSU vice-chancellor, professor Renée Leon, said the investments mark a significant step towards realising the vision of a more sustainable, innovative and resilient Australian agriculture sector.

"Charles Sturt is at the forefront of innovation across the board, but our agricultural research is truly leading the way on a global scale," she said.

"By collaborating with sector-leading partners like Telstra, NAB, Food Agility CRC and others, Charles Sturt is able to better leverage our researchers' cutting-edge innovations to serve the needs o primary producers and the industry as a whole."

The announcement of these investments comes in the wake of news that CSU will lead the AgriTwins project as part of CSIRO's Next Generation Graduates Program.

The University's Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Futures Institute (AICF) and the AgriPark will spearhead a new era in Australian agriculture through the education of 11 research students, eight PhD students, two master's students, and one Honours student in the fields of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity.

The project is a $1.59 million dollar collaboration between nine industry, four academic partners, and CSIRO to recruit students to specialise in digital twins and agriculture.