Parts of Australia's farming industry are rushing to recruit a new generation of tech-savvy graduates as the sector swaps its bucolic past for a future of drones, robots and automated sensors.

The push comes as cutting-edge machinery is used to plug a labor shortage on the nation's remote farms that threatens to derail its ambitions to become Asia's food bowl.

"For the first time in many years, we're finding it easier to attract graduates because agriculture, particularly technology in agriculture, is back on the radar," said Felicity Hennessy, general manager of innovation at agribusiness Ruralco.