Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA): WaterCan Profit - more profit per drop of irrigation water - commercial opportunity

Opportunity for

• Agritech solution providers, irrigation equipment companies and retail agronomy agribusinesses seeking to license and integrate irrigation decision support platform into their existing platform

Opportunity description

Industry Challange:

WaterCan Profit is a digital calculator designed with and for the Australian grains sector. It enables users to quickly contrast manifold economic and climatic factors influencing the profitability of broadacre crops.

Current opportunity:

Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (UTAS) and Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) are seeking engagement from agritech solution providers, irrigation equipment companies and retail agronomy agribusinesses interested in licensing a decision support platform.

WaterCan Profit enables users to:

1. Quickly contrast key factors affecting crop profitability
2. Select profitable crop types given current costs (e.g. fertiliser, fuel, irrigation) and seasonal climate outlooks;
3. Maximise returns on irrigated water (in $/ML and $/ha)
4. Apply the most economic amount of irrigation to current crops (ML/ha or mm)
5. Examine effects of variability (in markets and climates) on yield and economic returns
6. Determine whether winter or summer irrigation would be more profitable, and
7. Compare returns on investment in alternative forms of irrigation infrastructure (e.g. surface irrigation, border-check, centre-pivot, lateral etc.)

Opportunity background

WaterCan Profit could be used commercially, for example as a consulting tool with clients, as a software to select the most profitable use of irrigation water across a farm, or as a framework to evaluate seasonal risk or to compare capital investments in irrigation assets. As part of this, WaterCan Profit could be integrated within existing or future decision-support tools (provided the minimum viable functionality of the calculator is retained).

A number of short videos on WaterCan Profit are available online.

1. General introduction and overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfLVgRTks7o&t=49s
2. Simple methods for maximising profits of irrigated crops (Water Price app): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8F-jlLulnA&t=30s
3. Optimising the use of limited water across a whole farm (Optimiser app): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q8Zl5NEC54&t=141s
4. Comparing alternative investments in irrigation infrastructure (Investment app): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIlkbETmJCs&t=152s

We gratefully acknowledge funding and contributions from all of our partners.

• Grains Research Development Corporation (GRDC)
• Optimising Irrigated Grains University of Tasmania,
• Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture,
• School of Information and Communication Technology University of Queensland,
• The Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI)
• Southern Growers Department of Primary Industries and Regions (PIRSA)
• Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
• Irrigated Cropping Council (ICC).

Other applications

The calculator could be adapted with relative simplicity to other commodities (e.g. pastures, horticulture, viticulture) or disciplinary areas (e.g. irrigation scheduling, GIS, land-use planning).