Australian farmers and land managers are to be paid to share their soil data as part of a pilot program from the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment (DAWE).
Announcing DAWE’s Historical Soil Data Capture Payments Program, Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia, David Littleproud said the pilot aimed to reduce the loss of high-quality historic soil data and make the information accessible through a national soil database.
“(The Program) is part of the National Soil Strategy which aims to build knowledge for land managers to benchmark their soil against regional or type averages,” Mr Littleproud said.
“We know there is a lot of privately held soil data captured for agricultural management and other purposes,” he said.
“This Program aims to gather and preserve soil data and make it centrally and publicly available for others to use.”
Mr Littleproud said better soil data would lead to improved research, technology and policy outcomes and would benefit all Australians.
The Minister said the pilot would also support land managers to obtain soil information to increase productivity and profitability; monitor soil health; and access new market opportunities such as agriculture stewardship.
He said DAWE was seeking suitably qualified service providers to act as data brokers to help deliver the Program.
“Once selected, data brokers will work with land managers to source soil data that has been collected and tested using approved testing methods in a laboratory,” Mr Littleproud said.
