I am pleased to have been appointed as one of Australia’s Country Representatives to the International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA), alongside Professor David Lamb, Chief Scientist of the Food Agility CRC, who has served on ISPA for several years. I am Senior Lecturer in Precision Crop Management at the University of Sydney, where I lead PA research projects and also teach undergraduate and postgraduate agronomy and PA courses.   I just wanted to take this opportunity to provide a bit of context on the PA landscape in Australia, and highlight some of the differences and opportunities for collaboration with ISPA and other national societies. Australia’s national PA society is the Society of Precision Agriculture Australia (SPAA). It is an organisation I am proud to be involved with through a range of advisory and extension activities.   SPAA is not a professional accreditation body or a purely academic society. Instead, it works at the intersection of research, industry and on-farm practice, with a focus on supporting adoption. SPAA plays a distinctive role in Australia’s precision and digital agriculture landscape, one that differs in several ways from many national precision agriculture societies internationally. Established in 2002, SPAA is a national, not-for-profit, member-based organisation that emerged as technologies such as yield mapping, GPS guidance and variable rate application were gaining significant traction in Australia in the early 2000s. With this, the need grew for an independent body to help connect research, technology and practical on-farm decision-making. The membership comprises growers, consultants and advisors, researchers and agribusiness.   Over time, SPAA has evolved alongside the Australian agricultural sector. While its early focus was on site-specific management, its scope now includes digital agriculture, data integration, automation and autonomy. What has remained consistent is SPAA’s emphasis on applied ...more