NFF to unveil Australian Farmers online platform

The website plan was first revealed when the NFF accompanied Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at a media conference in December last year, to announce a package of measures focussed on digital innovation.

The new online advocacy platform was initially flagged to go live in May this year by the then NFF CEO Simon Talbot, as part of the NFF’s unification, restructure plans.

However, the peak farm body suffered a setback on its goal to utilise the digital tool to assist with election campaigning, under a streamlined representative structure, when Mr Talbot departed earlier this year, after only 16-months in the role.

At the time of Mr Talbot’s resignation in early March, NFF President Brent Finlay said he expected the digital dais to be up and running by June “but if the federal election is called faster than that we’ll be caught with our pants down”.

NFF has promised its new online advocacy platform can compete with the likes of Animals Australia and GetUp! to deliver timely public and political messages on core issues, backing Australian farmers.

In a statement for today’s launch, the NFF said the new online platform would enable farmers to exchange ideas and advocate on the issues that matter most, provide the latest news about food, fibre and farming and offer localised weather data to improve decision-making.

NFF CEO Tony Mahar said the digital tool was a major step in bringing the farming community together, in the twenty-first century.

“Australian Farmers will revolutionise the way we engage with the community: delivering the latest news from agricultural organisations and empowering farmers to share their ideas and knowledge instantly,” he said.

“Farmers live and work across the entire nation, including the most remote and isolated parts of Australia.

“The platform is a major step for Australian agriculture as it enables farmers to tell their story to a bigger audience than ever before.”

Mr Mahar said the NFF’s vision, along with partners Accenture, Coles, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Findex, Prime Super and Vodafone, was to provide farmers with innovative digital tools and technology to enhance the industry’s productivity.

He said it was important to arm the industry with modern online advocacy tools.

The traditional farm advocacy model has served the NFF well in shaping political outcomes but it hasn’t been as effective at bringing along the broader community, he said.

“Australian Farmers gives us a powerful tool to tell our story, living in the bush and looking after our animals, crops, land and wildlife,” he said.

“It helps us to connect better with farmers to understand their views on the big issues.

“Our future and our ability to shape the public debate on farming issues will depend on our engagement with the Australian community – we rely on everyday people lending their voice to support our farmers.”

Mr Mahar said Australian agriculture was an industry with incredible potential that was also clean, green, ethical and sustainable.

He said everyone in the agricultural community had a role to play in telling that story and the new online tool would give the NFF more powers to do that.

“I encourage people to visit www.farmers.org.au take a look around, sign up for free and get involved,” he said.

The NFF’s announcement with Mr Turnbull at the Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute south of Sydney last December included plans for a digital agriculture data service and multi-million dollar incubator for agricultural start-ups and technologies.

The agricultural technology innovation hub to be named ‘Sprout’ was due to surface in March 2016.

“This may sound a little bit controversial but the road to future serfdom for farmers is to not own their data,” Mr Talbot said at the time.

“You may own the land but if you don’t own the data someone else is going to use it against you.

“So we decided as an executive and a board to make sure our mandate over the next 25 years is to ensure that we had a solution for digital agriculture involving farmers owning their data and maximising the commercial benefits of owning that data.”

Mr Talbot said he believed the online platform would work like a “digital Swiss army knife” for farm businesses.

“What Smartphones did for our generation the digital platform will do for agribusiness,” he said.

“It will change the way we manage, communicate and lift productivity.

“It’ll be like using an excellent work dog and one day you’ll look back and wonder how you ever managed without it.”