Ag Tech Sunday - EvokeAG, brainwaves and takeaways

By: "Farm Tender" News
Ag Company News
Mar 03, 2019
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By Jane Trindall

Last week AgriFutures Australia held their EvokeAg conference in the beautiful Royal Exhibition Building in the centre of Melbourne. Attended by 1200 delegates and hosting 50 plus speakers over two days, the conference, which at times resembled more of an Apple keynote than the usual precision agricultural format, included presentations and panel sessions split across the themes of farm, food, future. Topics covered agtech and biotech, investor briefings, international trade delegation meetings, startup pitch events as well as a festival of food. There was a lot going on and in some respects too much at times - the event could easily have run over many more days.

Why EvokeAG?

EvokeAG gave a glimpse into the future of the evolving agricultural innovation sector. Venture capitalists were the theme and we were introduced to a host of venture capital funds who a want to solve real problems, scale globally and make big money. In a domestic environment of declining and short term funds and public sentiment to support research, new capital could really drive Australia's aspirations to be a test bed of agricultural innovations.

There weren’t that many producers at the event - they weren’t really the target audience, but they were present and we spoke to people innovating with technology in their businesses across most industries. The event tended to focus on horticulture more than the broadacre and animal industries which highlights a need to bridge the gap into these industries. The Future Young Leaders program was featured front and centre, showcasing the super sharp minds and ideas of the next generation coming into agriculture.

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Change was evident. Startups who governments and industry have invested in such as Flurosat and the Digital Agriculture Service were highly visible and partnerships between government, industry and venture capital funding are emerging for example, GrainInnovate and growAg - different approaches, both of which were showcased at the event (the latter was introduced by Littleproud during the day one plenary session to the surprise of many).

Common questions asked were: can Australian agtech innovate for the global stage? Can we connect ideas to global capital? If so, how?

Growing force for change

There were some interesting companies on show. The Investor Handbook for evoke showcases all agtech start ups that applied to be part of EvokeAg including those that made it through to startup alley and pitch tent. The event was attended by a number of large Australian corporates including Elders, Visy, Westpac and NAB. It’s also clear that agtech has now caught the eye of large global organisations. Yamaha, Airbus, Bosch, IBM, Hitachi, KMPG and others were all present at the conference.

Printable food and organs based on plant based materials are close to commercial reality , enabled by genetic modification and new tech.

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Hydroxtech are producing a new and innovative agricultural plastic mulch for horticulture which shrinks in sunlight to hug the bed. The design lends itself to mechanical retrieval and recycling with on-site mobile pyrolysis machines. They initially tried developing sprayable polymers, and while they can’t yet make it cheap enough for agriculture, have produced a product for landscapers. They are interested in talking to cotton and sugar about their pyrolysis mobile system to turn plastics and waste into diesel for cotton gins and mills.

Agrinet is a case study of innovation – inventor meets problem. Founder Dan was teaching, read an article about a cotton/cattle grower, rang him during the class to ask about his problem, and started working on solutions and now has Telstra investment into his business.

Lindsay’s Fieldnet Advisor - an irrigation management decision support tool and Hummingbird Technologies - an artificial intelligence business have recently launched products providing recommendations to growers and the service sector (banks and insurance) based on data, machine vision and machine learning. This is going to be an interesting area to watch.

Alternative protein solutions were front and centre, mainly in the form of insects and an informative panel session - for example, for Goterra - production of insect protein is now a secondary outcome to what has become a waste management business.

SwarmFarm and RoboticsPlus both shared how robotics and automation are revolutionising thinking about farming and highlighted the need to think about the system, whether it be broadacre farming system or horticulture production and processing system. Interestingly both of these successful ventures have a founder who has emerged from the sector, bringing deep understanding about the system and the challenges.

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Data and Analytics

It wouldn’t be an agtech conference if data and analytics were not a key theme. Almost all speakers cited the importance of data to their business or endeavour. AeroFarms CEO David Rosenberg described the 120,000 data points his company collects during harvest to optimise future production, David Smith of CeresTag described the animal health and activity data his product collects for producers and Ros Harvey of The Yield hammered home the need for industry to focus on quality data collection and the provision of flexible, cloud based platforms to extract knowledge. Across all sessions it was acknowledged that across industries there is still much opportunity here.

How do we connect industry problems and science with global capital?

Large industry owners including Visy owner Anthony Pratt and Elders Chief Executive Mark Allison challenged the sector to look at how much money is invested in agtech in comparison to other economies. For example, Mr Pratt suggested that in Australia only 12c per person per year in invested in agtech in comparison to $5.80 in the US - that’s 50 times more! There is both a huge opportunity and challenge for RDCs and Government to change. How do RDCs and agricultural scientists bring their IP/knowhow to partner with venture capital funds and how can RDCs collaborate to engage? These were common discussions heard between sessions.

How can we innovate for the global stage?

Rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs) are waking up to the fact that the startup space is all about thinking outside the box/disruption the traditional way of doing things. We have an insect problem for example; while in other countries insects are considered a primary source of protein. How do we help our industries/researchers think differently about our problems/potential solutions, on that global scale? How can agriculture successfully move at scale into other industries such as utilities and waste management?

Thinking differently about collaboration and intellectual property (IP) management is a must, including how IP can become more discoverable, managed and accessible. Can we take the technologies behind the Australian ‘clean, green, safe’ message international? Can we capitalise on our integrity and bio security systems - innovating to bring value across industries and to export our IP and expertise internationally?

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To do this we need to think about how we support innovators and key strategic questions need to be considered such as -

● How do we invest in potential startups that are solving our industry’s problems?

● Can we embed PhDs in to start ups to enable their on-going R&D and support development of new skills?

● How do we partner with venture capital funds? What's the strategy to engage?

● Who are our Technology Transfer Organisations connecting global capital and teams to industry’s problems?

● How can RDCs and agricultural scientists bring their IP/know-how to the marketplace?

Connecting global venture capital and Australian agricultures rich science assets seems a match made in heaven for this sector, and it seems one step closer after @EvokeAG. Check out #evokeAG on Twitter for more. And go next year. Put it in your diary now: 18-19 February 2020.

Co-authors:

Andrew Skinner, Manager Information Architecture and Solution Design at the Integrity Systems Company, Meat and Livestock Australia Twitter: @andrewdotcom

Ruth Redfern, Communications Manager, Cotton Research and Development Corporation Twitter: @Ruth_Redfern @CottonResearch

Susan Maas, Impact and Investment Manager, Cotton Research and Development Corporation. Twitter: @SusanMaas4