The WA Government will invest $5 million in driving better digital connectivity for agricultural and pastoral businesses in regional Western Australia.
The Digital Farm grants program will enable farming businesses to use smart farming technologies such as cloud-based data sharing and decision-making tools to improve their productivity and output.
The program aims to provide regional businesses with fast, reliable, affordable and scalable connectivity solutions.
Grants of up to $500,000 will be available on a matching co-contribution basis, to cover capital costs of improving connectivity to multiple farming enterprises and associated stakeholders and targets agricultural and pastoral regions which lie outside the current or planned National Broadband Network fixed wireless and fixed line footprint.
The Digital Farm program was developed following input from the Minister’s Digital Connectivity Forum held in July 2017, and rollout of the program will be informed by outcomes from the Government’s State Telecommunications Infrastructure Audit.
More information is available at http://www.agric.wa.gov.au. Applications close on April 13, 2018.