A social media project aimed at broadacre primary producers to share their knowledge and ideas that was started in a farmer's paddock in Australia has expanded across the world and has connected thousands to a hub of learning and innovation.
The Facebook group—founded four years ago — now called 'Plant the crop 2020' built a strong following, with more than 11,000 members, including farmers from across Australia, South Africa, the United States and Canada.
Project founder John Gladigau who farms with the Bulla Burra team in South Australia's Riverland came up with the idea to create an online group, after receiving hundreds of enquiries from farmers to share their content, when they saw his innovative posts on his family farm's Facebook page.
"We then came up with this idea to make a group page, where everybody is equal, and everyone can share their own stories and show images from their own properties," Mr Gladigau said.
"People post photos of their own seeders and tractors, and maybe their dogs sitting in their cabins, but it sparked a whole conversation as people asked questions of each other about their machinery, their farming systems and about their setups."
A global farming village
Since the launch of the social media group it created "a global farming village", where growers were more connected, Mr Gladigau believed.
"It's been quite remarkable really and it's created a really strong bond between all of those people who are part of it," he said.
Agricultural design engineer Bruce Bartlett from Esperance in Western Australia joined the group three years ago and said it was a great way to get new inspiration because many farmers shared insightful videos.
"It's great to just log on there and to see what other people are up to, in the past you had to go on a field trip or field day to see what other people are doing," Mr Bartlett said.
As a developer for innovative farm machinery he has been sharing the progress on developing new planting gear in the online group and made use of the immediate response he could received from farmers.
'No anxiety between farmers'
Besides a global hub to exchange cropping and tech knowledge, Mr Gladigau believed it was also an outlet for farmers to just have fun and "brag about their own farms".
Grain grower Michael Hunt, who farms near Bordertown in South Australia, loved the positive vibe of the online community.
He said he appreciated the fact that "there was no anxiety between the farmers "to ask for help or even share post about "their little mistakes".
"It's just been very positive and people telling their stories, showing when they get bogged, it's just been great."
