The emergence of new technologies could enable graziers to monitor and manage livestock, and pastoral stations, by remote control across the vast distances of the continent.

"The new remote management technologies we've been trialling at DKCRC (Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre) may soon allow you to muster the cattle that are ready for market any time, and from any place in the world, provided you’ve got an internet connection," says Andy Bubb, leader of DKCRC’s 21st Century Pastoralism project.

"In theory, you could even muster and market your stock while on holiday overseas or at the beach, using a laptop or internet mobile phone.

"It's a new approach that gives the pastoralist unprecedented information about individual livestock on a daily basis – something we’ve never had before.

"This leads to fingertip control of their management and more informed decisions, including when to market them.

"It's the kind of control a dairy farmer has – only in a pastoral enterprise spread over thousands of square kilometres."

The new system – under trial on Napperby Station, NT, since April 2007 – identifies individual animals with an electronic ear-tag, notes when they come to water, records their weight and can be set to automatically draft those of marketable weight into a holding yard.

"So instead of calling in all the choppers and trucks, mustering the whole paddock, finding quite a few beasts aren't up to weight and are worth less money, this way those that are up to weight simply muster themselves," Mr Bubb said.

"It takes away the guesswork."

While the data on the stock may be in the station computer it is accessible on the internet by laptop or mobile phone.

The hardware consists of a solar-powered electronic eartag reader and weighing scale which report the weight of each animal as it crosses an automatic weighbridge on its way from water; an automatic drafting gate; and a radio telemetry link which reports the data back to the homestead.

A videocam can be added to provide visual surveillance.

"As a result of the past year’s trials, I’m confident in saying that the individual parts of the technology work well," Mr Bubb says.

"What we are now working on is packaging it into a complete, workable system and developing the software."

The automated mustering system can be assembled from available technologies, for a cost of between $10,000-$30,000, depending on configurations – a price that would soon be repaid by the higher returns from livestock marketed in prime condition.