Bartle Frere Bananas is a multi-generational farm in Queensland, Australia, supplying both small markets and major grocery chains.
Smart farming best practices to grow bananas more sustainably
Increased operational productivity
Reduced operational and energy costs
Reduced water waste
Optimized fertilization and irrigation
Healthier plants
55% reduction in administrative work
The humble banana is the number-one selling supermarket product in Australia, and all fresh bananas sold in Australia are locally grown. The vast majority come from farms in the northeastern state of Queensland, with plantations also in New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Bartle Frere Bananas is a recent recipient of the Future Farming Award at the 2021 Australian Banana Industry Congress. Its owner and managing director, Gavin Devaney, is proud of his family farm’s adoption of best management practices and innovative technology solutions. This ensures the bananas Bartle Frere Bananas supplies to small markets and major grocery chains, alike, are grown in an increasingly environmentally friendly manner.
From weather monitoring stations and a supply chain control tower to capture farming operation data such as insights coming from soil moisture and nitrate sensors, to a supply-chain tracking system with tags on banana plants and pallets, Bartle Frere Bananas is achieving a level of data-driven transparency and actionable insight that Gavin insists is critical to sustainable farming.
“We’ve now got the real-time, advanced sensing, leachate monitoring, sediment analysis and data capture in place, which runs through Hitachi’s Lumada Manufacturing Insights to predict and prescribe actionable insights based on data algorithms we have helped design. These insights guide our best management practices around irrigation, fertilization and plant care.” said Gavin. “It is important to know where your food is coming from and how it is grown, and by measuring our farming operations in these ways, we can provide Australians the information they need to be sure they are buying the best of the bunch.”
Powering Good with Deeper, Real-time Insights
Hitachi Vantara’s data-driven offerings for agriculture extend AI and automated insights from growing centers to data centers; from farm to market, delivering deep real-time data-driven insights.
Hitachi’s Lumada Manufacturing Insights and Supply Chain Control Tower:
The integrated Smart Farm solution from Hitachi Vantara also involves the following technologies:
“Every organization and industry sector has the potential to deliver data-driven outcomes that can effectively address social and environmental issues,” said Gajen Kandiah, CEO, Hitachi Vantara. “The smart, sustainable farming operation at Bartle Frere Bananas was designed to deliver a better banana that conserves and protects the surrounding environment. It is a fine example of using the power of data and technology to deliver social innovation, for which we advocate, and we are proud to be a part of it.”
Smart Farming for the Environment and the Future
“Bartle Frere Bananas is one of four trial sites that are incorporating the latest technology aimed at improving productivity while reducing costs and minimizing each operation’s environmental footprint. This project will provide detailed examples to the broader horticulture sector about the effectiveness of establishing remote monitoring and data analytics to support horticultures’ environmental performance, overall,” said Hort Innovation Australia’s General Manager of Stakeholder Experience Anthony Kachenko.
This digital smart farm project is the result of an engagement between Bartle Frere Bananas and Hitachi Vantara Australia Pty Limited and is supported by funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program. It is also funded by Hort Innovation, with co-investment from Applied Horticultural Research, the Australian Banana Grower’s Council (AGBC), AusVeg, Freshcare, Greenlife Industry Australia, Growcom, Hitachi Australia Pty Ltd and Hitachi Vantara LLC.
Despite having access to large amounts of data, BMC could not fully utilise it for the overall benefit of the plant. Shift by shift, decisions were being made by operators with different levels of skill and experience. To get better control of the plant, BMC needed to analyze its data in real-time and reduce operator variance.
“We selected Hitachi Vantara because it designed a solution that would reach beyond the CHPP and across all the different parts of our operation,” says Flaherty. “Plus, we wanted to keep using the technology, systems and hardware that we already had, and just bring in the advanced analytics bit. We were interested in the proposed solution which would deliver alarms and insights through the interface our technicians have been using for 20 years.”
“As a long-time Hitachi customer, we valued the technology and experience on offer from other business units within the larger organization,” says Flaherty.
BMC engaged Hitachi Vantara to build a cutting edge ingest-and-analyze solution combining Lumada Maintenance Insights, Lumada Manufacturing Insights, Pentaho Data Integration, and the Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Hyperconverged (UCP HC) offerings.
The solution allows BMC to ingest data from its fleet of mobile assets across the mining operation and fixed assets in the processing plant. It then assesses changes in production, performance, asset utilization and process optimization using Lumada Manufacturing Insights and Lumada Maintenance Insights, machine learning, analytics and visualization capabilities.
The analytics are guided by the experience and expertise of BMC personnel and operators. Best-practice insights are delivered to the operator advising on the best actions and adjustments for each shift to be run as efficiently as possible. The control room receives insights and alerts in time to take action, improve production, avoid slow-downs and prevent shutdowns.
Bartle Frere Bananas is a multi-generational farm in Queensland, Australia, supplying both small markets and major grocery chains. Bartle Frere Bananas is a 100 ha family owned and operated, Freshcare Environmental certified plantation in Boogan, Queensland. There is increasing pressure on the banana industry in Queensland to manage
phosphorus and limit inorganic nitrogen loads, which are notoriously difficult to measure and model. Runoff from the farm drains to the Moresby River, which is 30km from the Great Barrier Reef.
“We’ve now got the real-time, advanced sensing, leachate monitoring, sediment analysis and data capture in place, which runs through Hitachi’s Lumada Manufacturing Insights to predict and prescribe actionable insights based on data algorithms we have helped design. These insights guide our best management practices around irrigation, fertilization and plant care.”
- Gavin Devaney, Owner and Managing Director , Bartle Frere Bananas