Australia's digital agriculture dream stymied as government scrimps on broadband

The NBN was designed to bring faster optic fibres closer to the home than older ADSL connections.

SYDNEY: Gooda Creek Farm, located just outside Australia's capital city of Canberra, exemplifies the country's agricultural ambitions – a boutique producer that sells more than 2,000kg a week of highly sought shiitake mushrooms to domestic and Asian consumers. 

But when the farm suffered an Internet outage in August, business owner Ivy Liu was unable to send invoices for more than two weeks, hampering business in a technical hindrance that has become common for many farmers, the government admits.