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Australian farmers could soon be managing their herds not with trusty sheepdogs and battered pick-up trucks, but laptop computers.
Scientists are developing the concept of "e-farming", where landowners herd their sheep or cattle with the help of electronic sensors attached to the animals.
Instead of spending all day
astride a horse or motorbike, they will be able to largely run the farm from the comfort of a shady veranda.
Hands roughened by years of uncoiling barbed wire and castrating bullocks will have to adapt to the rather gentler task of clicking a mouse.
On the farm of the future, solar-powered sensors about the size of a mobile phone battery would be fitted to collars and attached to livestock.
With the aid of GPS navigation technology, they would be able to record the animal's exact position on the farm.
Motion detectors installed in the sensors would tell the farmer whether an individual animal was resting, walking or grazing.
The sensors, which are being developed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, would even be able to monitor the animal's health and weight, determining the best time to send it to market. The aim of the technology is to enable the most efficient use of pasture and avoid overgrazing, an invaluable tool at a time when Australia is suffering the worst drought in living memory.
It would be used with another intriguing Australian invention.
CSIRO scientists announced in June that they had invented a "virtual fence", dispensing with the need for closed gates or real fences.
A battery-powered collar around the neck of the cattle gives off a warning sound if they move within a metre or two of the virtual fence, which is set by GPS and exists only as a line on a computer.
Should animals stray across the virtual fence, they receive a mild electric shock.
They are capable of learning the boundaries of the invisible fence in less than an hour, researchers claim.
Independent animal welfare experts observed a prototype of the virtual fence in action and said cattle were not unduly stressed by the electric shocks.
"Virtual fences could be of great benefit across northern Australia, where cattle stations are enormous," team leader Dr David Henry said on Monday.
"They also have applications in areas like the High Country of Victoria, where mountain cattle stray into national parks.
"It's too expensive to put up fences all the way along the farm boundary, but the same results could be achieved by setting a virtual fence."
The CSIRO said it could take five to 10 years to produce a commercial version of the virtual barrier.
Scientists are also working on a miniaturised, commercial version of the animal sensor. "You could adapt the technology used in GPS chips in mobile phones," Henry said.
"It could be made small enough to be fitted on to an eartag."
