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By Bernard Fitzpatrick and Tim Neale
April 2008
RIRDC Publication No 08/038 RIRDC Project No CTF-1A
Executive Summary
What is the report about?
This report provides a comparative
overview of software mapping packages for use by primary producers. It
examines the range of software products available to assist landholders
and natural resource managers. It suggests a decision matrix for primary
producers to assess their needs, and the ability of mapping packages to
meet their needs and expectations.
Who is the report targeted
at?
This report is targeted
at primary producers who are choosing farm mapping software.
Background
Australian primary producers
are increasingly using computer software packages to support on-farm enterprise
management. The primary focus is financial management, plus some use in
farm mapping, product management, and in recording and reporting for both
government and industry initiated quality assurance schemes. Lack of comparative
information about the capabilities and suitability of the various packages,
particularly farm mapping software, is slowing adoption rates by farm businesses.
Aims/objectives
The objectives of this project
were:
Methods
An Australia-wide survey
of farm mapping requirements was conducted with primary producers and non-producers
who are associated with primary industry. Survey forms were distributed
electronically, with some interviews conducted to further canvas views
related to survey responses.
The survey enabled primary producers and consultants /advisers to indicate useful functions in computer mapping software packages.
A framework was developed and used to asses the ability of software mapping packages to meet primary producer needs and expectations, and observations.
The results of the survey and the comparative overview of the selected software mapping packages were used to develop a decision matrix, which provides a formalised process for primary producers to follow when assessing their farm mapping software needs.
Results and key findings
Two thirds of the primary
producers contributing to this survey do not currently use farm mapping
software. More than 80% said they would like to in the future.
The surveys found that farmers desire fundamental production, financial and mapping functions, but were uncertain about the relevance of natural resource management and environmental factors.
The vast majority (85%) of producers surveyed were ‘owner operators’ who are unlikely to be getting ‘in-house’ IT support available to large agricultural companies. This suggests that there is an opportunity to help owner operators in making better decisions in choosing and using farm mapping software to ensure greater success with its use. The decision matrix was designed to give some of this help by providing a process to follow when choosing farm mapping software.
The project team identified 48 available farm mapping software packages. Twelve were selected and reviewed with a sample of mapping data from a North Queensland property.
Most mapping programs designed specifically for farmer use were in a similar price range of $500 to $1500, which can be considered affordable.
The following summary comments about the 12 software packages tested are subjective and are based on a short review of each software program. Further work with the particular software, or advice from the software company, may overcome some of the issues listed here.
iFarm is a farm mapping and management package based on GIS and has linkages to cashbook, record keeping and stock movement recording. It is a very comprehensive, simple farm mapping product, and is able to handle different map datum’s and projections easily.
Phoenix Mapping is a farm mapping and management package based on GIS and has linkages to cashbook, record keeping, weather, and stock movement recording. The program slowed when the large test point dataset was introduced. Start up tutorial was helpful. When a layer is not active, it becomes transparent, which is a smart function.
Farmworks offer a wide range of software levels, and is primarily designed for precision agriculture and farm finance monitoring. It is not really designed as a ‘farm mapping’ product in terms of this projects’ brief.
GTA 100-400 was developed by AGCO using expertise from Farmworks, so comments relating to Farmworks relate directly to GTA 100-400.
SGIS (GTA500) has also been developed by AGCO and is based on GIS, primarily aimed at precision agriculture applications. Unfortunately licensing issues prevented the project team from evaluating the software.
Mapper by Back Paddock software is a paddock recording, mapping and planning software and is designed mainly for farmers but also has advisor modules. It has great mapping capabilities and is relatively easy to use. It has a navigation pane which enables the user to see where they are in relation to other data when they are zoomed into the map. The demonstration program crashed many times while it was being tested.
GP Mapper by PAM is one of the oldest and most widely used Australian mapping software programs on the market. Because of its maturity it has a wide range of functions, especially in relation to the range of data that can be imported. The team was impressed with on-the-fly projection. The map however was slow to refresh and had difficulty in handling larger datasets. Some functionality was not operating in the demonstration version and couldn’t be reviewed.
Farmkeeper is a relatively new product, based on GIS and has linkages to paddock recording for intensive and extensive livestock operations, with crop recording being developed. This program is not fully mature as a fully integrated program. A good function is the auto-save every 15 minutes.
Geopdf is a free, low level data display product based on the widely used Acrobat pdf format. It is a great program to get maps sent to clients in a format that is widely accepted, but has limited functionality at present.
ArcGIS is one of the world’s more widely used GIS programs. Its range of functionality is enormous, but the trade off is that it is very complex to use. Most medium level software will accept Shapefiles (a format outputted by ArcGIS) which has almost become an industry standard.
Mapinfo is also a widely used GIS program for advanced users. It has a difficult user interface. Its functionality is also large, but not suited for most primary producers.
Manifold is an advanced GIS system like ArcGIS and MapInfo which is also more suited to seasoned GIS users and so will generally not be suited to the skills levels of most primary producers. Manifold has good functionality and is much cheaper than other advanced GIS systems.
Recommendations
If a better understanding
of primary producer farm mapping software requirements and adoption rates
and issues on an industry by industry basis is required, a more comprehensive
study is required with the resources, financial and time, to obtain larger
more representative sample sizes across primary production industry groups
for both primary producers and non-producers. Any such study should consider
the seasonal influences on primary producer time availability to complete
such a survey.
There have been and are a
number of funding programmes implemented around Australia which have assisted
or are assisting primary producers to purchase farm mapping software. There
is a need to determine how effective these programmes have been; which
primary producers have used or are actually using the software; what are/have
they used the software for; why they have not or have ceased to use the
software; document where and why there have been true adoption or lack
of adoption of the use of the farm mapping software.
 
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