The recently-formed Precision Agriculture Association of New Zealand (PAANZ) will host the International Asian Conference on precision agriculture in 2017.

The bid was submitted in South Korea, and New Zealand beat three other countries - Malaysia, India and Indonesia - for hosting rights. The conference is one of three large international conferences on precision agriculture (PA) held around the world each year. The 2013 conference was held in South Korea and attracted more than 150 attendees.

PAANZ chairman Peter Barrowclough said the successful bid to host the conference was an early demonstration of the value of having a national precision agriculture organisation up and running in New Zealand.

''With our changing export markets and increasingly strong linkages with South East Asia, this will be an excellent vehicle for New Zealand to improve its global networks,'' Mr Barrowclough said.

A host city for the conference is to be decided and a committee will be formed from within the existing PAANZ membership to begin planning for the event. PAANZ was officially launched as part of a one-day workshop and field day in Methven, Canterbury in April this year.

The primary role of the association is to enable land users to be more productive, efficient and sustainable and therefore competitive by providing a platform for information-sharing, networking, investment and innovation in the development and implementation of relevant PA technologies and systems for the primary sector.