Five must-visit ag innovation hubs in Queensland
Queensland is buzzing with agricultural innovation. Whether you're into robotics, sustainable farming, or the latest agtech, these five innovation hubs are where the future of farming is happening. Here's your guide to some of Queensland’s top ag innovation centres. Add one (or all!) to the itinerary while you’re in the Sunshine State for AgriFutures evokeAG. on 18-19 February 2025.
1. Central Queensland Smart Cropping Centre
Region: Central Queensland
Keen to see the latest in cropping innovation in action? The Central Queensland Smart Cropping Centre (CQSCC) has got your name on it.
The centre brings together RD&E in farming systems, plant protection, agronomy and crop innovation, and delivers world-class research for Queensland’s cropping sector.
You can also see a SwarmFarm robot in action; the evokeAG. 2024 Scaleup Station participant has provided the centre with the robot Quebec II to provide herbicide application via a 13-metre spray boom bringing in ‘Weed It’ technology, electromagnetic soil surveyors and slashing.
There’s plenty on the horizon too – think a staff control centre, a robotics control centre, and a robotics centre – all set to support agritech functions and improve field research capability.
- Contact [email protected] for more information.
2. Gatton Smart Farm
Region: South East Queensland
Field cropping including robotics. Protected cropping. Whole of farm and food supply system integration. It’s all at Gatton Smart Farm.
The $9 million Queensland Government and Hort Innovation initiative to drive agritech adoption across supply chains is transforming the Gatton research facility into a world-class Smart Farm for horticulture.
It showcases the latest agritech innovations in field robotics, sensors, drones, protected cropping, postharvest, cover cropping and strip tillage, and more – and there’s more to come.
A suite of state-of-the-art protected cropping and post-harvest facilities are being built, including a climate-controlled research glasshouse, retractable roof protected cropping structure and cold-rooms with controlled atmosphere technology.
- Contact [email protected] for more information.
3. Spyglass Beef Research Facility
Region: North Queensland
Newborn calf loss, reproductive inefficiencies, and beef cattle genetics are just a couple of investigations this purpose-designed facility is leading to advance tropical and subtropical beef production.
Located 110 kilometres north of Charters Towers, the Spyglass Beef Research Facility covers 38,000 hectares and is on a mission to future proof the profitability and sustainability of Queensland’s beef industry.
It’s packed with specialised infrastructure and equipment including plunge dips, a sample preparation room, drying ovens and dehydrators, and bloods centrifuge which allows platelets and blood plasma to be isolated from other blood components.
- Contact [email protected] for more information.
4. Mareeba Research Facility
Region: Far North Queensland
State of the art laboratories, a fully water recycled and treatment biosecurity mobile washdown and more await you at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) Mareeba Research Facility on the Atherton Tablelands.
The facility has staff working in horticulture, broad acre cropping, agronomy, soil science, plant breeding, remote sending, plant breeding and entomology – and more.
Mango breeding and evaluation, lychee development, biosecurity, and molecular geology gene marking make up some of the research focus, development and extension services it’s providing to Far North Queensland’s agricultural industries.
- Contact [email protected] for more information.
5. Southern Queensland and Northern New South Wales (SQNNSW) Hub
Region: Darling Downs
Farmers across the world face the challenges of a shifting climate, and Australian farmers are no different. So, what do they need to not only withstand these challenges but also succeed in the future?
The SQNNSW Hub, headquartered in Toowoomba, is one of eight national Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs empowering stakeholders to co-design drought preparedness initiatives for their regions.
The national four-year program will see $86 million shared across the hubs to harness research, development, extension, adoption, commercialisation and knowledge.
Some of the key agricultural industries within the SQNNSW Innovation Hub region include livestock, broadacre cropping, cotton, horticulture, viticulture, tree crops, sugarcane agribusiness and ag advisory ecosystems.
- Contact [email protected] for more information.
Keen to see some of these innovative hubs in action? Thinking you might need to add on some more leave to extend your trip to evokeAG. 2025? Here’s five fast facts you need to get your boss to sign off on your evokeAG. leave.