Rural Edge Inspire Summit: Sheer volume of ag-tech startups make it hard for farmers to navigate ‘what works’

The future of farm technology is exciting but the sheer volume of start-ups and difficulty getting different platforms to “talk to each other” is frustrating farmers and making it hard to determine “what works”, ag-tech experts say.

A panel of five of WA’s most well-known internet experts delved into the future of farm technology at this year’s Rural Edge Inspire Summit at the Ritz Carlton in Perth on April 5, with plenty of insights and technology advocates on hand.

On the panel was Farmanco management consultant Alice Butler, Pindar farmer Mark Flanagan, neXtgen Agri agribusiness consultant Georgia Pugh, NBN Co community engagement manager Jen Thomas and Crisp Wireless co-owner Maree Gooch.

Agristart founder Natasha Teakle chaired the panel, starting by sharing her story of starting her business and the challenges of working with aspiring ag-tech start-ups — some of which had very limited understanding of agriculture.

Formerly a farmer for nearly 25 years, Ms Gooch she understood the trials and tribulations of farming and was inspired to join the internet space in 2016 when her now-business partner had an idea.

Now a four-person, growing small business with investors, Crisp Wireless covers nearly 85,000sqkm across 25 local government areas, using fixed wireless, point-to-point internet covers with towers forming a mini-web to connect users.

“We are among the most leading and innovative farmers in the world,” she said.

“Internet access can make a big difference to your business.”

Ms Gooch said the business had received nearly $13 million in grant funding from State and Federal Governments and had commissioned analysis to determine the cost-benefit for users.

“Many of our clients (connected through Crisp) have told us their productivity has increased 10 to 15 per cent… the impact of good connectivity is enormous,” she said.

Ms Gooch she was “extremely proud” the service had not broken down or ceased connectivity during trifecta of cyclone Seroja, last year’s devastating Wheatbelt fires, and the Quairading floods allowing customers to stay connected in emergency situations.

Ms Thomas, who grew up on a family farm at Mingenew, said she was inspired to take on the role with NBN Co because she was passionate about ensuring regional residents were connected.

NBN Co is a publicly-owned corporation of the Australian Government, tasked to design, build and operate Australia’s digital backbone as a wholesale broadband access network provider.

She rebuked assertions that not everyone could get access to NBN, and delved into a Sky Muster Plus trial under way to provide unlimited data to customers in the Gascoyne and a separate fixed-wireless expansion project being rolled out in WA.

Ms Thomas said NBN Co’s plan to expand its fixed wireless network cell range from 14 km to 29 km would be a “game changer”, effectively quadrupling the area served.

“Kids coming home (to family farms) are digital enablers, they are not going to put up with poor connectivity,” she said.

Ms Thomas recalled the impact of cyclone Seroja on her home town in the Mid West, and the benefit of free community Wi-Fi during emergency situations in regional areas.

“Communication during emergency situations, fires, floods or cyclones, is critical,” she said.

Ms Butler said her first question to her Farmanco clients was what colour machinery they used, and said there was enormous benefit to Wi-Fi transfer of data between machinery.

However, she said the practice was “still in its early stages”.

“If you have multiple heads, the likelihood of them reading the same thing is very low,” she said.

“That chews up a lot of time in terms of processing data and to get something useful to inform a management decision.

“There is a really long way to go in terms of moving data between platforms.

“That’s why I have a job and hopefully in the future we will have artificial intelligence doing that… because it is taking a lot of time away from analysing that data and making a decision.”

Mr Flanagan, who shared his experience of starting virtual mapping before he knew what to do with the information, echoed Ms Butler’s sentiments.

“There are two things, soil and water… everything is about the climate and it seems to be variable lately, we are getting lots or no rainfall,” he said.

“Everything we can do with variable rate is good… we didn’t know some of our soils hold water really well and others don’t.

“Once you understand that, you are down the track at being better at what you do.”

He recently became the fourth farmer in WA to use one of SwarmFarms’ autonomous machinery to spray fallow paddocks, saying the technology was replaced by the company every three years.

“It is a dollars decision,” Mr Flanagan said.

“Autonomous machinery is coming down, and other machinery is becoming more expensive.”

Mr Flanagan also raised an interesting point about who owned intellectual data about leased property.

“If I have spent $100,000 on soil testing and collecting data… whose data is that,” he said.

Ms Pugh said engaging with start-up businesses was key and urged farmers to have an “honest conversation” with their owners about what and did not work.

“Start-ups are often just a one or two person band with very short and low funds,” she said.

“It is really difficult for them to learn and get on the ground, and become profitable while trying to solve a problem,” she said.

“They are searching for a solution to fill a void. Pick up the phone, because you might find it is the owner on the other end.

“Be mindful these are small businesses and provide feedback that is constructive.”

Ms Pugh said she knew some farmers that were deviating away from ag-tech after having poor experiences, but urged them to “be patient”.

“If you have a negative experience please do try again and keep having those conversations,” she said.

“In the same way there are so many streaming services, there are so many ag-tech platforms and businesses out there. We are yet to find the perfect one.”

Ms Teakle also spoke about the need to boost understanding of agriculture across the ag-tech start-up space, saying there were many great ideas out there by people with no experience in farming.

Electronic tagging of livestock, special recognition technology, autonomous machinery were touted as some of the most exciting examples of upcoming technology, while drones to detect mice in paddocks, infrared and aerial carbon mapping.