Despite being one of Australia’s backbone industries, agriculture isn’t typically associated with digital innovation.

Yet there are incredible changes afoot, bringing digital transformation to the critical task of not only boosting production and animal wellbeing through intelligent application of AI, robotics, IoT and blockchain, but also the critical job of increasing cyber readiness to combat biosecurity challenges as food looms as one of latest threat surfaces.

And importantly for CIOs, it seems as though we may be on the crest of a wave bringing unprecedented tech job opportunities to our beautiful regions as farmers look to digital tools to handle many of the more tedious tasks.

Just over 12 months into his role as the first CIO with Costa Group, Mark Brown relates how he’s wrangling a two-speed digital ecosystem with a view to completely transforming the relationship between food and tech at the Australian fruit and veggie giant.

Joining him is Phillip Valencia, team leader embedded intelligence and senior research engineer with the CSIRO, expanding on the massive opportunities - especially for vertically integrated agricultural firms – to streamline supply chains and affirm provenance using digital technologies.

Ben van Delden, partner, operations advisory head of AgriFood Tech & Circular Economy Advisory with KPMG reckons there’s potential to reap $20 billion worth of additional value a year to the Australian economy.

And all echo the warnings from former Deputy Leader of the NSW Nationals, country boy and now professor of agtech and horticulture with Charles Sturt University, Nial Blair that technology’s role in ensuring food security has never been more vital.