MADFIG Projects

MADFIG Drought Hub Node

Project duration:

2022-2026 *now extended to June 2026

In collaboration with:

South-West Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub and Grower Group Alliance (GGA)

Funded by:

The Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund (FDF)

Project Description:

MADFIG hosts a local Drought Hub Node in the Central and Eastern Wheatbelt.

There are eight Hubs across Australia and only one in WA, the South-West Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub (SW WA Hub) led by the Grower Group Alliance (GGA). The SW WA Hub collaboration aims to share and enhance drought resilient practices and accelerate innovation and adoption. The first Drought Hub Node Lead project ended in June 2024. The program has recently been extended to June 2026. MADFIG will continue to work with farmers, businesses, individuals, organisations and research institutions in the Central & Eastern Wheatbelt. Other FDF projects that MADFIG hosts include WaterSmart Dams and the FRRR Agribusiness Network.

Want to know more? Visit our Drought Hub web page!

As part of this project, MADFIG has an additional Demonstration Project.

Demonstration Project Name: “Integrated Climate Data Driven Decisions for the Eastern Wheatbelt”

The project has three components:

1) We want to demonstrate a safe way farmers can share individual property generated data and increase confidence (and security) in their role as data originators. We’re building on previous IoT projects and linking with current projects and priorities.

2) We want to investigate Micro Climate forecasting but it can’t happen without a willingness to share de-identified farm data for aggregation and analysis. If we can integrate the existing Wildeye weather network, capturing the high variability across the region and within localities, we can look at how this impacts local farming systems. We want to enable better decision-making to reduce seasonal risk.

3) We’re trialling network accessibility by integrating the diverse range of existing farmer used apps and data capture systems on a MADFIG Dashboard. We want to demonstrate what this looks like for a total cropping enterprise and a mixed farming enterprise. It might include anything from livestock water monitoring, farm security systems, soil moisture probes to future swarmbot spray applicators and VRT cropping systems. All available on your laptop or phone 24/7.

Watch this space!