A DIGITAL platform will enable farmers to maximise their productivity and make more informed decisions within their business.
Developed through the WA Producers' Co-operative (WAPC), the platform will be a vertically integrated digital logistics management platform with blockchain capability and smart contracts across Western Australia meat supply chains.
Established in 2019, WAPC is a sales and logistics company owned by farmers in the Great Southern who work with supply partners to aggregate the supply and distribution of premium beef, lamb and niche grain products to high value markets.
WAPC chief executive officer Christine Kershaw said the digital platform would offer new service offerings to the WA meat sector that are not currently available.
"By digitising member's farms and developing a digital trading platform within WAPC, the WAPC will be the first and only group able to differentiate their branded products from other branded products by providing genuine traceability from farm to fork," Dr Kershaw said.
"This strengthens WAPC's value to processors and customers at the same time as it helps its members to modernise their farms."
Over time the platform will have an array of information for producers on decision making on-farm and within WAPC, including providing processor feedback on meat quality, digital contracting, weather predictions and production information so that they can make more money, manage risks and reduce costs on-farm.
"The purpose of the digital platform will be to unlock the value of hidden data captured from connected devices on farms and in WAPC supply chains using sophisticated cloud services to optimise WAPC business operations and provide significant insights," she said.
"Through the digital platform, WAPC would have the ability to gain real-time insights into how member's on-farm production systems are performing (supply) compared to likely demand from processors and customers."
With the Internet of Things (IoT) integrated throughout the supply chain and farms, Dr Kershaw said data could be used to anticipate and react to conditions in near real time, which helps WAPC make changes in near real time to procurement orders and members to adapt their production systems or vice versa.
WAPC members will also be able to see in real time contract offerings for commodities on a weekly basis and supply chain partners will be able to track and trace product movements and provide processor and customer feedback.
"Also, the WAPC will be able to collect data from the supply chain to ensure the co-operative logistics and distribution system operates most effectively while maximising profit and member value," Dr Kershaw said.
"Once fully established (less than five years) predictive on-farm decision support built on top of the WAPC digital platform would allow the co-operative to monitor, influence and optimise production systems across farms for better supply, productivity and quality performance.
"The new digital platform provides the insights necessary to maximise production systems potential, supply chain efficiencies and post-harvest meat quality.
"Data from sensors within livestock herds, on farm and throughout the supply chain can be combined with environmental information (e.g. weather or pasture availability) and market information to provide a data ecosystem capable of analysing multiple sources of data for specific business decisions and digital contracting."
The platform will provide brand protection for WAPC and processor and consumer feedback capability, which will be linked to members for the products they supply.
Incorporate blockchain technology:
Historically, producers and exporters have carried the burden of counterparty risk and lack of payment security when making a delivery to a buyer or storage site.
Dr Kershaw said greater security over the title to commodities for farmers and ways to eliminate counterparty risk could be made possible through digital solutions that incorporate blockchain technology.
"Blockchain technology enables distributed ledgers that hold data in a secure and encrypted way and ensures that transactions can never be altered," she said.
"This distributed ledger technology is finding a broad range of uses, including payment and food security and food traceability."
Blockchain holds exciting possibilities to help solve two key challenges for the agricultural industry globally: matching title transfer of a commodity asset to payment; and supply chain provenance and traceability.
"Digitisation and traceability are two of the most important aspects of developing an enhanced commodity supply chain system and an integral part of a proactive brand strategy for the WAPC in the digital economy," Dr Kershaw said.
"At every link in a supply chain, a new player handles the product and either creates or consumes data.
"For example, each player has various interests and business needs, which means their data needs can also be vastly different.
"A processor may want to know shipment arrival times and a producer may want feedback on meat quality and yield."
Dr Kershaw said that currently the appearance of new technologies such as IoT and Big Data Analysis led to a new generation of more functional, but complex, traceability systems.
"And then there is the fact that supply chains aren't linear chains at all," she said.
"One set of trading partners invariably interacts with companies in other chains, creating a much more complex web of data."
For full chain traceability to work efficiently, Dr Kershaw said anyone who created and consumed data needed to be "plugged in."
She said because no one technology company can meet all needs for robust, full-chain traceability, multiple companies must collaborate to build solutions that meet the multiple functions and needs expressed in the data sharing agreements.
Over time, WAPC believes this kind of collaboration among technology vendors will help the industry develop and grow.
"The aim is to develop a system that supports a high-quality product that maintains its pristine condition from the farm all the way to the consumer with full digital traceability and instant payment systems," she said.
Partnering with technology companies Hitachi and BizCubed and funded by the Regional New Industries Fund, the initial design stage for the WAPC digital platform is underway.
Trials are expected to commence in 2021.
