[LINK] Ffx: 'Farmers ‘crippled’ ... as GPS-guided tractors grind to a halt'

[Roger Clarke]

[ Total reliance, with no fallback of any kind?

[ No fallback arrangements with another satellite signal provider?

https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/techops/navservices/gnss/gps/howitworks
https://www.gps.gov/systems/gnss/
https://www.geospatialworld.net/blogs/what-are-the-various-gnss-systems/

[ No alternative source of geo-positioning info with, say, +/-3 metre 
accuracy, despite the variety of techniques that exist?

[ Not even anything as crass as some physical markers at strategic 
points in the fields?

[ So it doesn't need a nuclear holocaust to bring on famine and 
depopulation, just a collapse in GPS services, e.g. as a result of a 
proxy-war in orbit? ]


Farmers ‘crippled’ by satellite failure as GPS-guided tractors grind to 
a halt
Mike Foley
Fairfax
April 18, 2023 — 5.39pm
https://www.smh.com.au/national/farmers-crippled-by-satellite-failure-as-gps-guided-tractors-grind-to-a-halt-20230418-p5d1de.html

Tractors have ground to a halt in paddocks across Australia and New 
Zealand because of a signal failure in the satellite farmers use to 
guide their GPS-enabled machinery, stopping them from planting their 
winter crop.

The satellite failure on Monday was a bolt from the blue for farmers in 
NSW and Victoria, who were busy taking advantage of optimal planting 
conditions for crops including wheat, canola, oats, barley and legumes.

“You couldn’t have picked a worse time for it,” said Justin Everitt, a 
grain grower in the Riverina who heads NSW Farmers’ grains committee.

“Over the past few years, all these challenges have been thrown at us, 
but this is just one we never thought would come up.”

Tractors that pull seed-planting machinery, as well as the massive 
combine harvesters that reap Australia’s vast grain crops, are high-tech 
beasts that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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They are enabled with GPS tracking and can be guided to an accuracy 
within two centimetres, enabling seed-planting equipment to sow crops 
with precision to drive up efficiency, prevent wastage and boost 
environmental sustainability.

All that went out the window when the Inmarsat-41 satellite signal failed.

Katie McRobert, general manager at the Australia Farm Institute, said 
Australian farmers sourced their GPS signal from one satellite, which 
was a critical risk to rural industries.

“Having all your GPS eggs in one basket is a vulnerability on a good 
day, and a fatal weakness on a bad one,” McRobert said.

“If the Medibank and Optus data breaches didn’t make the agriculture 
industry sit up and take notice, the implementation of kill switches on 
stolen Ukrainian tractors in 2022 should have been a three-alarm wake-up 
call.

“Digital literacy, capability and crucially, security, need to be 
priority investment areas for the industry and the Australian government.”

Chris Groves, chairman of the National Farmers Federation farming 
systems committee, is planting canola, grazing wheat and oats on his 
property between Canowindra and Cowra in NSW.

He said the winter cropping period had kicked off with a perfectly timed 
autumn break — the first major rainfall event of the season that heralds 
the crops’ growth period — but the GPS outage would probably mean major 
costs and headaches for farmers.

“This is crippling for the farm community,” Groves said.

“I was talking to a cousin of mine, he has been farming for 70-odd 
years, and he reckons its as good an autumn break as he has ever seen,” 
he said.

“But GPS is our guidance system that eliminates overlapping [in rows of 
seeds] and over-application of chemicals, and when that system is down, 
the machine is literally down.

“My planter is 32 rows wide; if I overlap by just two rows, that is 4 
per cent I am losing out on. When you’re paying $1300 [a tonne] for 
fertiliser, that really adds up very quickly.

“My crop sprayer relies on the GPS signal to tell the spray unit how 
much chemical to put on, where it is in the paddock and how many nozzles 
it needs working.”

There is no indication when the problem will be fixed.

Satellite provider Inmarsat said a fix was under way and customers would 
be updated on progress.


-- 
Roger Clarke                            mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA 

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University