Article summary: Agrievolution Summit in Buenos Aires (1–3 Sep 2025) is a good reminder that “precision ag” is not just for cropping. This article shows how precision thinking improves three grazing decisions (when to move, how much to allocate, when to conserve), what to adopt first for the biggest benefit, and how satellite-backed pasture covers help you tighten the loop without adding new hardware.
Agrievolution Summit in Buenos Aires (1–3 September 2025) is billed as a global gathering focused on mechanisation and precision technologies. For crop growers, “precision ag” often means sensors, variable-rate, and machine guidance.
For graziers, it should mean something much simpler:
Fewer surprises, cleaner decisions, and more consistent pasture utilisation.
Precision, in a grazing system, is not about flashy kit. It’s about shrinking the gap between what you think is happening in your paddocks and what is actually happening, then acting earlier.
Precision for graziers: it improves three decisions
If you anchor precision to just three on-farm decisions, it stays useful and it stays manageable:
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When to move
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How much to allocate
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When to conserve (or supplement)
Everything else is a bonus.
Decision 1: When to move
The problem
Most grazing “misses” are timing misses. You stay a day too long and residuals crash. Or you move a day too early and the paddock never really recovers. Over a month, those small timing errors turn into uneven covers, a wobbly rotation, and reactive feeding.
What precision changes
You move because the paddock tells you to, not because the calendar does.
That usually looks like:
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A clear pre-graze target range (what you want to start on)
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A clear residual target (what you must leave behind)
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A weekly check on whether the rotation is tightening or blowing out
How to measure success in the next 30 days
Pick one class of stock (milkers, lambing ewes, weaners) and track:
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How often you hit your intended residual
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How many “extra day” grazings you did because you were unsure
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Whether your rotation length is becoming more consistent
Consistency is the early win. Production follows.
Decision 2: How much to allocate
The problem
Allocation errors create feed gaps. You offer too much and quality slips, utilisation drops, and regrowth slows. You offer too little and performance drops, animals pressure the paddock, and you end up “opening the gate” later anyway.
What precision changes
You allocate with enough confidence that you do not need to keep changing your mind mid-graze.
In grazing terms, that means translating pasture into a simple “feed offer”:
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What’s in the paddock now (cover)
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What you will leave behind (residual)
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What’s available to harvest (the difference)
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How many days that should last for that mob
You do not need perfect maths. You need repeatable, directionally correct decisions.
How to measure success in the next 30 days
Track one thing that matters to every grazing enterprise:
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Fewer mid-graze corrections (fewer “we had to add another break” moments)
If you want a second measure:
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Fewer paddocks that end up both overgrazed at the front and undergrazed at the back
That pattern is a classic signal that allocation is drifting.
Decision 3: When to conserve (or supplement)
The problem
Most farms conserve too late, or supplement too late, because the warning signs are vague until they’re obvious. By then you are either chasing surplus that has already gone rank, or you are feeding to cover a deficit that has already pulled your covers down.
What precision changes
You decide earlier because you can see the trend.
Two simple triggers do most of the work:
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Average cover trend: are you building the bank or spending it?
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Growth vs demand: is the gap closing, stable, or widening?
When you can see those two, “conserve vs keep grazing” becomes a calmer decision.
How to measure success in the next 30 days
You want fewer emergency calls:
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Fewer “we had to buy feed this week unexpectedly”
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Fewer “we got caught with too much pasture and lost quality”
That’s what precision looks like in a grazing system: fewer surprises.
Minimum viable precision: what to adopt first
If you are starting from scratch, the best precision stack is not hardware-first. It’s habit-first.
Here’s the minimum viable set that delivers the biggest benefit with the least complexity:
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Measure paddock covers weekly (consistently)
Same day each week if possible. Same method. The goal is trend and comparability, not perfection. -
Use a feed wedge (or ranked paddock list) to choose “where next”
This turns scattered paddock observations into a decision tool. The wedge helps you protect the low end, use the ready paddocks, and avoid accidental re-grazing. -
Track one rotation KPI and one pasture KPI
Rotation KPI: rotation length (actual).
Pasture KPI: average cover trend over time.
If those two are stable, you are far less likely to get squeezed.
That’s enough to make precision pay without making it a new job.
Pasture.io tie-in: paddock-level decisions without new hardware
One reason precision feels “cropping-only” is that it often implies new machinery or sensors. For grazing, you can get most of the gain by tightening the decision loop with paddock covers.
A simple Pasture.io workflow looks like this:
Step 1: Update covers
Satellite-backed pasture covers give you a scalable baseline across the whole platform, especially when paddocks are spread out or time is tight.
Step 2: Build a feed wedge
Use the wedge to rank paddocks by cover and make the next grazing decision obvious, not debated.
Step 3: Track progress weekly
Watch:
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Average cover trend (your feed bank)
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Growth vs demand trend (your sustainability check)
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Rotation consistency (your execution check)
Over a month, this is what changes:
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Better pasture utilisation (less wasted feed, fewer blown residuals)
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More consistent rotations (less stop-start grazing)
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Fewer emergency decisions (because you see drift earlier)
That is precision for graziers, minus the complexity.
The takeaway
Agrievolution’s focus on precision technologies is a good prompt to reframe “precision ag” for pasture systems.
If you make precision about three decisions (when to move, how much to allocate, when to conserve) and start with minimum viable habits (weekly covers, a feed wedge, and two trends), you can get the benefits of precision fast, without turning your grazing operation into a technology project.
- The Dedicated Team of Pasture.io, 2025-09-04