With consumers demanding lower-carbon products and farmers facing rising energy costs, the integration of solar, bioenergy, renewable diesel and electric machinery is no longer a vision of the future — it’s happening now.

These innovations and more will take centre stage for the first time in Victoria with the National Renewables in Agriculture Conference 2025 in Bendigo on July 23.

The conference will bring together farmers, energy experts, researchers, industry leaders and government representatives to explore the practicalities, opportunities and challenges of renewable energy in agriculture.

Among the speakers is Victorian pig farmer Caleb Smith.

He has embraced the concept of a circular economy as a core part of his operations, capturing pig effluent to create power, which is helping to reduce their electricity bills.

“We were spending anywhere between $200,000 and $400,000 annually on electricity across three sites at our farm, so wanted to use the captured biogas from the effluent ponds, to produce power and heat, which we then use to warm the piglets. This saves almost $200,000 in power and hot water bills a year,” Mr Smith said.

As well as tasting his pork products at the conference, delegates will have the opportunity to visit Mr Smith’s farm the next day for a tour of the biogas generator.

“Quite often farmers would like to do something like this but they don’t,” he said.

“I think the reasons we don’t often is because of the unknown. What we don’t know is scarier. So speaking about what we have done and having people come and see how simple it and showing it can be done will hopefully encourage others to do the same.”

Gippsland dairy farmer Sandra Jefford is working on a controlled microgrid, using solar power to irrigate her property. She can monitor how much solar is powering her operations and how much is exported to the grid.

“We save significantly on power costs depending on the season,” she said.

“We’ve added more irrigation over the years which has increased our power needs, so we will be adding more solar to one of those sites in the coming months, and potentially more in the future. It just makes business sense to do so."

New Zealand farmer Mike Casey will talk through his journey to electrify his farm, having the first electric Monarch tractor in the Southern Hemisphere.

He has recently installed batteries on his farm and converted a ute to electric.

“We have a 6ha cherry orchard in Central Otago with 21 electric machines that saves about $40,000 a year in energy costs which is a huge amount of inputs,” Mr Casey said.

“The cost of solar and batteries are at such a good price now, that rolling those out will really reduce our costs of operations on farms as well as the cost of living in general.

“I’m on a wholesale electricity contract now, so I can use my large batteries for protection against exposure to the open power market, and that means I can turn what has always been considered a risk, into an opportunity for farming.

“My batteries will actually earn an income for the farm over the year. That’s a whole new revenue stream for farming that’s a significant opportunity for farmers.”

Conference founder and farmer Karin Stark says momentum is building across the sector.

“Farmers are increasingly turning to renewables to tackle the challenge of rising diesel and electricity prices,” she said.

“But there’s still work to be done in making the right technologies available and ensuring regional contractors and services are equipped to deliver.”

The conference will also explore agriculture’s growing role in decarbonising the electricity grid.

“We’ll be discussing the evolving distribution network and microgrids, and the potential for smaller, distributed solar projects on farms — say 5MW systems — feeding directly into the local network,” Ms Stark said.

“There are also emerging opportunities for farmers to be paid for providing energy services as new markets develop.”

For more information, go to: www.renewablesinagconference.com.au

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Sunday, 27th April 2025

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