Agtech - So What?

Sarah here with a quick update on what's new and coming soon at AgTech - So What!

Topics: agtech-ecosystem, people-culture

Angus Street - CEO, Auctions Plus

This week AgTech So What? Comes to you live from the Sydney AgTech Meetup. Sarah Nolet hosts a conversation with Auctions Plus CEO Angus Street.

It's one of the Top 10 websites visited every day by rural Australians, AuctionsPlus has used simple technology to redefine livestock trading.

Founded in 1986, its fair to say AuctionsPlus has been well tested in the market and has seen some changes over that time in the AgTech and startup scene in Australia. Remaining a privately held company, Auctions Plus is now facilitating more than $630 million worth of livestock sales annually. In July 2018 AuctionsPlus appointed Angus Street as their new CEO. Having worked within the organisation as the Sales Manager he knows every inch of the business and it shows in this conversation with Sarah Nolet.

The Startup Phase is gruelling and AuctionsPlus has experienced exponential growth due to as Angus describes it 'the perfect spot where the value proposition met market conditions'. Now that they enter the next phase of growth how does the organisation navigate the changes. How do they keep culture in tact, and the agility to continue to innovate? 'No way in hell are we going to be corporatised' is Angus's response!

More about the Sydney AgTech Meetup group

More about AuctionsPlus here

Follow Angus Street on Twitter

Connect with Angus on LinkedIn

Follow AuctionsPlus on Twitter

Follow AuctionsPlus on LinkedIn

Companies: AuctionsPlus • Topics: livestock-dairy, ag-retail, ag-data

This week's conversation is with Leeton, NSW based managing director of I-AG Pty Ltd Anthony Rudd.

Anthony Rudd has a unique insight into the integration of machine automation and data adoption in agriculture and has worked in this space for John Deere Australia, a Chinese company and also in software writing and development.

In 2008 Anthony was employed as John Deere Australia's first ever integrated solutions manager. The concept was extremely new but it had been tested in the United States. Basically his work involved joining technology to the dealership and then to the grower, so essentially moving from machine guidance to full automation and then into integrated data.

He tells Sarah Nolet that his company I-AG is busy working with an external partner developing software that will hopefully unlock the efficiencies in the space at the moment.

"We've built the base software, so it will ingest data from anywhere and any type you can store it safely and you can share it safely with whoever you want to share it with at the moment, in a few weeks we will have the map generation module available."

Anthony's website explains that "I-AG specialize in providing data and software solutions tailored to suit your individual operations. From simple data management all the way to building complex software to enable you to access the data you need instantly and easily enabling our clients to make quick informed decisions based on what their data is telling them."

You can find more information on I-AG here

You can find I-AG on twitter here

You can find Anthony here on Twitter.

View Anthony's LinkedIn Profile here

Companies: John Deere, I-AG • Topics: autonomy-robotics, ag-data, ag-retail

The Digital Ag Collective with Kelly Pearce and Tanya Kilminster from the West Australian wheatbelt.

This podcast conversation is about the development of an Australian farmer owned and controlled group that utilises and shares the most relevant data systems and programs available in the Ag Tech sector.

Kelly Pearce and Tanya Kilminster both live and farm in the West Australian wheatbelt. More notably they both hold Agricultural Science PhD's with the CSIRO.

In their chat with Sarah Nolet they explain the climatic and economic imperatives that are changing the way farmers in their regions conduct business.

Tanya works with the WA Department of Agriculture and Food and says, "in the last decade we have really had some challenges from a climatic and economic point of view - so every decision we make has to be really critically thought out. We really need to utilised the data available us to make much more informed decisions. From about 2010 onwards we have had some really 'doozey's' of seasons and so farmers have really challenged us as a Department for solutions."

Both Kelly and Tanya have been interested in making better use of the business intelligence becoming available to their own farming systems and found that once they delved deeper they became frustrated with what they found.

This has led to the establishment of the Digital Ag Collective (DAC).

"We went to Sydney and we put a call out there for data scientist, analysts, IT experts come and meet with a group of WA producers who are really interested in pursing technology for data integration and business intelligence and we were overwhelmed with the response," says Kelly who is the Collectives chairperson.

Kelly says the aim of the DAC is to, "drive industry wide, producer led frameworks and standards for providers to incentivise and allow us the opportunity to give our experience, to be involved in the assessment of these technologies, share our pain points and help co-develop solutions together."

"What we are proposing that farmers are a critical part of the solution and that tech needs to be developed from the ground up."

Right now the Collective is busy working out who are their best collaborators and partner as well as setting up their right legal entity to allow for a true hub of business intelligence - that is owned and run by farmers.

You can find Kelly here on Twitter

You can find Tanya here on LinkedIn

For anyone interested in more information about the Digital Ag Collective you can email Kelly at http://[email protected]

The Digital Ag Collective can be found https://digitalagcollective.com/

Companies: Digital Ag Collective • Topics: ag-data, agtech-ecosystem, government-policy

EvokeAG LIVE Special!

In this Episode of AgTech So What we take you to a panel Sarah hosted at the recent Agrifutures EvokeAG Event.

Precision farming, using satellite imagery and drones to monitor crops along with farm-management software tools to maximize decisions are powering smarter farms. Uptake of these and other AgTech innovations are set to expand with the imminent introduction of faster, cheaper connectivity.

Panel members:

Companies: evokeAG, AgriFutures • Topics: ag-data, autonomy-robotics, crops-horticulture

This week we come to you live from EvokeAG. EvokeAG is an exciting event showcasing the best of the best hosted by Agrifutures.

Sarah Nolet hosts this panel on Alternative farming - a new frontier.

With global population expected to reach 10 billion people in 2050 and urban sprawl encroaching farmland how do we maximize dwindling resources to feed everyone? Farming practices are undergoing a radical transformation to produce more from less and make the most of what is there.

Panel members:

• James Pateras - Modular Farms

• Dror Tamir - Hargol FoodTech

• Olympia Yarger - Goterra

• Emma Parsons - Agrigate

Companies: evokeAG, AgriFutures • Topics: agtech-ecosystem, people-culture, crops-horticulture

Matt Roesner is the technical director for his family's machinery business Roesner Pty Ltd. based in Harvey, Western Australia has been in existence for more than 100 years..

The Marshall Multi Spread was the first Australian multi purpose fertiliser spreading machine spreading lime and gypsum at the same time. Since that time 10,000 machines have been built by Matt's family.

Matt says, "we've stayed relevant by spending a lot of time getting to know what our customer base wants and what their needs are. I think one of the challenges these days is the cost of capital equipment, it's continually rising and they are spending large amounts of money on machinery that can only be used for a few months of the year and so we have concentrated on building something simple, that is easy to maintain, that will last multiple seasons and has a long service life."

These days the business is reputable as a leader in the development of agricultural technical data. A few years ago the business built a mobile app for IOS and Andriod to send out calibration data to its client base.

"We got a really good response and so we decide to build a variable controller app for an Ipad and there was immediately a lot of interest in it too," says Matt.

"We see the importance of the data ecosystems that exist around our products is important to the growth of our business so in March 2018 we purchased the Precision Agronomics Australia business, based in Esperance, WA and formed the i4M (Internet For Machines) brand - with the aim of having flexible and open systems that are simple and cost effective and independent from other brands. Our whole plan is to be able to have equipment talking back to the internet to allow applied data usage."

Matt speaks with Sarah about the importance of the agricultural agronomist keeping up with the rapidly developing pace of technology, why he's eagerly awaiting the arrival of artificial intelligence and, the opportunity for Australia to become leaders in autonomous agriculture and how trust between growers and service providers will be pivotal in the evolution of data use in precision farming.

Download the Marshall Multi Spreader App here

Watch the Marshall Multi Spreader YouTube Channel here

Learn more about the Marshall Pty Ltd business at roesner.com.au

Companies: Roesner Machinery • Topics: fertilizer, farm-machinery, ag-retail

Jennifer Medway,

Sheep farmer, Gunning NSW

Manager for research and innovation with AgriFutures Australia.

Jennifer Medway is a 5th generation farmer from Gunning in southern New South Wales running a sheep and wool farm with her Mum, Dad and Husband.

In this podcast Jen shares her perspective as a farmer, who's also had career in agricultural policy and governance and now agtech. She explains how she uses a combination of these pursuits to leverage technological progress within the farm business, board rooms and in her role as manager for research and innovation with AgriFutures Australia.

Despite the drought, their farming operation continues to scale driven and inspired in part by the MLA's Producer Innovation Fast Track program which has enabled the adoption and utilisation of tagging, profiling and data management technology to build the best flock they possibly can. It means a lot of investment in new machines, consultants, tags, technology and time but has completely changed their growth mindset. To enable to set-up of their new system, the business has worked closely with agtech and providers such as MerinoLink (EID's), and ClipEx (infrastructure).

Jen lovers her work AgriFutures for its diversity and she says there is much 'horizon scanning.' Her portfolio the National Rural Issues program is the perfect fit for her to leverage her experience in farming and policy issues.

Jennifer Medway - LinkedIn

Emerging Opportunities - AgriFutures Australia

Companies: AgriFutures Australia • Topics: livestock-dairy, government-policy, agtech-ecosystem, people-culture

Viv McCollum and Margaret Ayre

We're trying something new on the podcast today - a joint conversation with two admirable women in the Ag Tech space - Viv McCollum and Margaret Ayre.

Vivienne McCollum is the founder of agricultural consultancy AGKServices (AgKnowledge) and has been heavily involved precision agriculture for about 18 years (before smartphones and in some instances the internet!). She shares her insights into the role of young people in the adoption of precision agriculture in Australia, as well speaking about what advisors are struggling with. Viv also speaks with Sarah about the tools available to help farmers adopt and get greater value from innovative precision ag in their individual farming operations.

Margaret Ayre is a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne and more recently she's been working the faculty of Science's Rural Innovation Research Group. Margaret shares her insight into the importance of the qualitative and emotional side of agricultural innovation, things like trust and confidence and the pivotal role they play in tech adoption in agriculture.

University of Melbourne Rural Innovation Research Group

Research Paper, Key Findings: Stimulating private sector extension from Australian Agriculture to increase returns from R&D.

Companies: AGKnowledge • Topics: ag-data, crops-horticulture, women-agtech, agtech-ecosystem

Rob Sharkey describes himself as a farmer, podcaster and an outfitter. He's a grain farmer from Illinois in the Unites States and has morphed into somewhat of a social media celebrity in Agriculture circles for his commentary and questioning on rural issues.

Rob has an inquisitive take on his commentary and tries to incorporate humour and a bit of cheek into his works on his blog, podcast's and occasional TV show as well as 12K following on Twitter.

This conversation explores what he's learnt about podcasting and voicing his opinions to the public - as well as his opinion on how to bridge the rural urban divide through the media.

This is Rob's website sharkfarmer.com

Rob's podcast The Shark Farmer comes out each week - he can also be found at the Farm and Rural Ag Network. His second podcast is the What the Farm podcast.

Topics: people-culture, marketing-brands, agtech-ecosystem