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Today we bring you our evokeAG. x Food Futurists collaboration series with Professor Andy Lowe,  exploring solutions today that will help drive sustainable food systems tomorrow. 

Buckle up for Andy’s conversation with David Farquhar, a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Scottish agritech company, Intelligent Growth Solutions – a trailblazer of vertical farming, in a class of its own.

Imagine a precision-controlled indoor environment where plants can thrive all year round without soil, with an energy system that mimics real sunlight and seasonality.

These one-of-a-kind fully-automated modular Growth Towers are being used by food producers, businesses, and farmers all over the world, and soon the first solar-powered commercial-scale farm in Perth, Australia will house the tech solution at Eden Towers.

Learn more about this ground-breaking solution and the opportunities for farmers and re-localising supply chains with Andy Lowe and David Farquhar.
 
Show note: Watch the 'Blood Sweat and Dreams' film David refers to and go to 11.53mins to see IGS feature > https://bloodsweatanddreams.economist.com/film1/

Renowned as one of Australia’s most productive food bowls, the Goulburn Valley is abundantly rich in produce and teeming with innovation opportunities set to benefit a range of agrifood businesses.

To continue driving the region’s productivity, the NorvicFoods project was launched, with the University of Melbourne and Sensand Technologies to work with the community to solve key issues facing agrifood businesses in the value chain and nurture the connection of university graduates to agriculture.

Davi La Ferla,  Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Sensand Technologies, a key partner in the project, speaks with growAG. contributor, Judy Kennedy about the possible innovations set to rejuvenate Victoria’s Hume region and why human-centered and tech-enabled solutions will help to maximise business outcomes.

If you're an agribusiness in the Goulburn Valley with an industry challenge you'd like solved, you can submit applications via growAG.com here. Expressions of Interest close in December 2022.  

This week we bring you another Humans of Agriculture x evokeAG. podcast, as part of our collaboration series with Oli Le Lievre. 

Here Oli speaks with Mike Lee, a global food futurist based in the US, about the possibilities of our future food system and what that may look like in five to 25 years – and how better connections between farmers and consumers is key to agricultural prosperity. 

As Co-Founder of Alpha Food Labs – a food innovation company that helps other companies create innovation strategies and new products that are better for people, planet, and palate – and Founder of the Future Market, a futurist food lab, Mike's experience in food design and innovation is incredibly diverse. 

We hope you enjoy their conversation about the future of food, farming and deep thinking to drive innovation. 

This week we take a look at the National Farmers Federation Data code and how it is helping farmers and tech companies better navigate data governance. 

The NFF’s Data code was designed as a starting point for discussion between the farmer and the service provider about how data will be treated, in order to give producers legal assurances around how their data is going to be used, shared, stored and secured.

Our evokeAG. contributor Oli Madgett explores this issue with Andrea Koch, the chair of the NFF Data Code working group, and Hamish Munro, CEO of PairTree Intelligence, an agnostic and independent dashboarding platform, specialising in integrating data between hardware and software companies. 

We hope you enjoy this conversation.

This week, we take a look at how data is helping farmers make better decisions and improve their operations. Data capture and ensuring its protection and usability is key to maximising its value for farmers and agritech vendors.

Data interoperability is one of the key challenges for the agricultural industry when transferring data between different systems and platforms. Building community consensus around agreed data specifications and standards will be key in harnessing the true value of data and help to accelerate industry innovation. 

Our evokeAG. contributor Oli Madgett explores this important issue with Andrew Cooke, Founder and Managing Director of Rezare Systems, and Andrew Skinner, the Director of digital and data systems consultancy firm, More than Machines.

 We hope you enjoy this conversation.

Today we launch our evokeAG. x Food Futurists collaboration series with Professor Andy Lowe, a highly acclaimed and innovative research leader at the University of Adelaide exploring solutions today that will help drive sustainable food systems tomorrow.  

Andy's first conversation with Sarah Nolet, Co-Founder and Managing partner of Tenacious Ventures explores the rise of digital agriculture, breaking down industrial era mindsets, and why 'becoming makers, not just takers of agritech' is so important for Australia's blossoming agritech industry and early adopter farmers. 

Working at the frontier of agrifood tech innovation, Andy draws upon a wealth of knowledge throughout the series ­– speaking with industry heavyweights like Sarah about the future of food – from new-age seawater greenhouses to soil microbe technologies and everything in between.

We hope you enjoy their conversation. Listen to more Food Futurists podcasts here. 

This week we learn about Western Australia’s famed marron crayfish and how it could become the next global food sensation.  

Aquatic AI, an aquaculture tech startup is leading this charge, with a fully-automated, vertical aquaculture system to ensure a consistent supply [at scale] of this tasty crustacean for premium export markets – in collaboration with the University of Western Australia. 

With the support of AgriFutures Australia’s Emerging Industries Program, Andrew Walker and Michael Storey, the Co-Founders of Aquatic AI are seeking commercial investors to help research and develop a scaled aquaculture supply chain for marron to rival the iconic WA rock lobster industry.

Here our growAG. contributor Judy Kennedy learns more about the robotic technology and the nutritionally balanced diet developed to optimise the taste and size of the famed marron crayfish, when grown in an intensive system.

Aquatic AI's research will not only help to produce seafood with a small environmental footprint but serves to benefit all marron farmers and aquaculture more broadly. 

This week we share our chat with James Madden, the Founder and CEO of Flinders + Co – the first meat company in the world to become completely carbon neutral back in December 2018.

James isn’t afraid to share his failures – in fact, it’s what led to new business opportunities for the Australian carbon neutral meat supplier.

Our evokeAG. Editor, Samantha Noon speaks with James about the demand for carbon-neutral products, consumers' purchasing behaviours and the path-to-market in the highly competitive shelves of major retailers, like Coles.  

James’ willingness to share his learnings, as well as his successes, has been a welcome conversation on platforms like LinkedIn. Here we learn more about the evolution of Flinders + Co in a rapidly changing market and why embracing “failure culture” could lead to greater innovation and success for Australian startups.

We’re excited to launch our first-ever Humans of Agriculture x evokeAG. podcast collaboration series with Oli Le Lievre.

Throughout this series, we’ll shine a light on the people – from all walks of life – who make our global agrifood system so vibrant. We hear their stories of innovation, their diverse backgrounds, what drives them, and why shaping the future of food is so rewarding.

Join us for Oli's first deep-dive conversation with John Harvey, AgriFutures Australia’s Managing Director about his career in agriculture from Sydney to Wagga Wagga, his unwavering focus on connecting the dots between innovation, commercialisation, and research and development – and the incredible opportunities on offer in agriculture and how we should position agriculture to attract the next generation.  

This week we speak to Justin Webb, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of AgriWebb, on how the farm management technology is supporting farmers to share their sustainability stories to global consumers – and earn premium prices for practices backed by verified data.

Over the past seven years as AgriWebb has expanded they’ve seen 'remarkable adoption' from farmers and ranchers around the world. AgriWebb’s platform now boasts over 18 million head of livestock, across 150 million acres, worth $400 billion in agricultural assets. Justin said, “It’s become the singular digital platform that moves our industry forward.”

Join our evokeAG. Senior Manager, Pip Grant as they delve deep into conversation about creating a more profitable, efficient and sustainable future.