AGDAT: SPATIAL APPLICATIONS TO IMPROVE HARVEST MANAGEMENT, DATA RECORDING AND REPORTING, AND DATA EXCHANGE BETWEEN ORGANISATIONS

GEOGRAPHIC Information Systems (GIS) have been used in the Australian sugar industry for almost 20 years to map the crop, plan the harvest and record extension information. A number of customised applications have been supplied to the industry by Agtrix P/L to enable relatively untrained operators prepare maps for cropping, keep track of harvest progress through a mapping interface, and allow extension information to be recorded spatially. In 2007, a project was initiated to integrate this suite of products and enhance their operation. The resultant product, AgDat, provides an integrated suite of applications to perform the existing functionality of the current applications, but with added capabilities in terms of the technology used, the options available to the user to capture the data and the data exchange between organisations. This paper describes the development and the operation of the various components of AgDat and how and where these components can be used. They include (1) the desktop versions that allow operators to capture the base information on cropping and harvest progress as well as record various management data such as seed and plant records, inputs and surveys, (2) the AgDat Remote application that allows operations to be recorded in the field as they are being done, and (3) the web interface that allows on-line viewing and editing of the data. All of these applications are supported by the AgDat Interpolator application that interprets the areas affected by an operation from vehicle tracking using GPS, and data exchange systems that enable secure data exchange between organisations. The way that AgDat can be used by the industry to improve its harvest management and data recording, meet its regulatory reporting requirements, and share data between the various stakeholders is also described.