Category Archives: AgTech

AgTech, Automation, Conference, Data Analytics

Integrating Public and Private Spatially-based Data

Aaron McCallion

Very pleased to confirm Aaron McCallion as a speaker at our Annual AgTech Conference LandWISE 2017: Are we ready for automation?

Aaron’s presentation will focus on how public and private data are being integrated to provide better land management outcomes.

For example, a recent European initiative has used data integration to automate pesticide application to crops in a way that protects adjacent natural ecosystems through the use of legal buffer zones identifiable by machine readable maps. 

In New Zealand, integration of public and private data is being piloted to assist Maori land owners in achieving economic returns within their environmental, social and cultural values.  This is being enabled through open government data initiatives that include legal land titles, vegetation cover maps, soil databases, digital elevation models and remote sensing.

The impact of different land management approaches can be assessed when such public data is combined with private data that includes historic land use practices, climate monitoring, ecosystem health indicators, inputs and financial data.

Visual representation of this spatial data in interactive mapping and analysis tools can then allow users to understand land management issues as well as aid the identification of risk mitigation or restorative strategies.  

Aaron will discuss what is needed for such approaches to be effective,  and ethical and legal requirements that need to be maintained with respect to privacy where the public or private data could identify individuals.

Aaron McCallion is Executive Director of Waka Digital, a leading Information Technology firm established in 2006 to deliver IT and communications based products and services. 

Aaron combines system dynamics modelling, economics and management with his understanding of sustainable development and environmental restoration. His skills include assessment of effectiveness, efficiency, user satisfaction and accessibility to measure or improve the usability of new or existing products or services, including prototypes.

He is a Key Researcher in the MBIE programme, Oranga Taiao, Oranga Tangāta – Knowledge and Toolsets to Support Co-Management of Estuaries and previously in the MBIE gold-rated programme, Manaaki Taha Moana-Enhancing Coastal Ecosystems for Iwi. (2009-2015)

Aaron has a BBS from Massey University and an M.B.A. through the global program operated jointly by Sejong University in Korea and Syracuse University in the United States.

AgTech, events, Plant Health, Research

Field day – mesh crop covers for insect and blight control on potatoes

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Tuesday 14 March 9.00 am – 11.00 am

FAR field site, North West corner of Springs and Ellesmere Junction Roads, Lincoln Google map.  Access off Springs Road, 300 m north of Roundabout.

Join FAR, Potatoes NZ, and the BHU Future Farming Centre for a roundup of results to date on the use of mesh crop covers for potato pest & disease control and the findings from the current field trial. 

  • How mesh covers are controlling blight
  • Mesh and tomato potato psyllid TPP control
  • Aphids and mesh
  • Potential yield boost from mesh due to improved microclimate

Get reports from the first two years trials here

Tomato potato psyllid (TPP) (Bactericera cockerelli) arrived in New Zealand in 2006 and has proved to be a important pest in a number of solanaceae crops, including potatoes.  While insecticides have proved effective for its management, this has caused a large increase in agrichemical use which is undesirable, and this option is not available to organic growers.  A ‘non-chemical’ means of controlling TPP is therefore desirable.  Mesh crop covers are such a non-chemical control: they are akin to fly screen for crops. They are extensively used in Europe for controlling a wide range of pests on an equally wide range of crops by both organic and mainstream growers. 

 

Prior research by the FFC made the serendipitous discovery that mesh crop covers are not only an effective barrier to TPP but they are also achieving significant potato blight (Phytophthora infestans and/or Alternaria solani) control.  A correlation has been shown between a reduction in UV a & b light levels and blight and also TPP symptoms. 

As mesh can keep out a wide range of potato insect pests, including those that are resistant to insecticides, such as tuber moth, it has the potential to be a single non-chemical solution to both insect pests and blight on potatoes.  As potatoes are the 4th most important food crop globally, with more grown in the developing world than the developed world, the potential global impact in terms of reduced agrichemical use is considerable.

However, potato aphids, mostly Myzus persicae, are penetrating the mesh, even mesh that has sufficiently small holes to exclude winged (and wingless) adults.  Once inside the mesh, their populations can explode due to the absence of beneficial insects, in effect, it is an unintentional experiment on the level of biological control of aphids. 

Mesh with sufficiently small holes to exclude immature aphid instars has been tested and resulted in a second serendipitous that the fine mesh appears to be modifying the under mesh micro-climate resulting in increased yields, while also improving blight control. 
Such very fine mesh has the potential therefore to completely control all potato insect pests, as well as blight and increase yield through entirely physical means. 

The field day will provide an opportunity to hear more about the research as well as viewing mesh on potatoes.

   

Agronomy, AgTech, Drainage, MicroFarm, Plant Health, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research, Sensing, Soil, Water

Benchmarking Onion Variability 2016-17

Now in year two of our OnionsNZ SFF project, we have trials at the MicroFarm and monitoring sites at three commercial farms in Hawke’s Bay and three more in Pukekohe.

2015-16

A summary of Year 1 is on our website. A key aspect was testing a range of sensors and camera systems for assessing crop size and variability. Because onions are like needles poking from the ground, all sensors struggled especially when plants were small. This is when we want to know about the developing crop, as it is the time we make decisions and apply management.

By November our sensing was more satisfactory. At this stage we captured satellite, UAV, smartphone and GreenSeeker data and created a series of maps. 

We used the satellite image  to create canopy maps and identify zones. We sampled within the zones at harvest, and used the raltioship between November canopy and February yield to create yield maps and profit maps.

Yield assessments show considerable variation, limits imposed by population, growth of individual plants, or both

We also developed relationships between photographs of ground cover, laboratory measurements of fresh weight and leaf area and the final crop yield.

In reviewing the season’s worth of MicroFarm plot measurements and noticed there were areas where yield reached its potential, areas where yield was limited by population (establishment), some where yield was limited by canopy growth (development) and some by both population and development.

This observation helped us form a concept of Management Action Zones, based on population and canopy development assessments.

Management Action Zones – If population is low work for better establishment next season. If plants are small see if there is something that can be done this season

2016-17

Our aims for Year 2 are on the website. We set out to confirm the relationships we found in Year 1.

This required developing population expectations and determining estimates of canopy development as the season progressed, against which field measurement could be compared.

We had to select our “zones” before the crop got established as we did a lot of base line testing of the soil. So our zones were chosen based on paddock history and a fair bit of guess work. Really, we need to be able to identify zones within an establishing or developing crop, then determine what is going on so we can try to fix it as quickly as possible.

In previous seasons we experimented with smartphone cameras and image processing to assess canopy size and relate that to final yields. We are very pleased that photographs of sampling plots processed using the “Canopeo” app compare very well with Leaf Area Index again this season.

Through the season we tracked crop development in the plots and using plant counts and canopy cover assessments to try and separate the effects of population (establishment) and soil or other management factors.

We  built a web calculator to do the maths, aiming for a tool any grower or agronomist can use to aid decision making. The web calculator was used to test our theories about yield prediction and management zones.

ASL Software updated the “CoverMap” smartphone application and we obtained consistent results from it. The app calculates canopy ground cover and logs data against GPS position in real time. Because we have confidence that ground cover from image processing is closely related to Leaf Area Index we are working to turn our maps into predictions of final yields.

Maps of canopy cover created from the CoverMap smartphone application show significant variability across the paddock. Canopy increase is seen over time in two maps created a week apart

The current season’s MicroFarm crop is certainly variable. Some is deliberate: we sat the irrigator over some areas after planting to simulate heavy rain events, and we have a poorly irrigated strip. We know some relates to different soil and cover crop histories.

But some differences are unexpected and so far reasons unexplained.

Wide variation within the area new to onions does not follow artificial rain or topographic drainage patterns. This photo is of the area shown far right in the cover maps above.

Together with Plant and Food Research we have been taking additional soil samples to try and uncover the causes of patchiness.

We’ve determined one factor is our artificial rain storm, some crop loss is probably runoff from that and some is historic compaction.  We’ve even identified where a shift in our GPS AB line has left 300mm strips of low production where plants are on last year’s wheel tracks!

But there is a long way to go before this tricky crop gives up its secrets.

This project is in collaboration with Plant and Food Research and is funded by OnionsNZ and the MPI Sustainable Farming Fund.

We also appreciate the support of growers, seed companies and our MicroFarm sponsors Ballance AgriNutrients, BASF Crop Protection and the Centre for Land and Water.


 

Agronomy, AgTech, MicroFarm, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research

MicroFarm Update

Ballance AgriNutrients and BASF Crop Protection have continued their sponsorship of the LandWISE MicroFarm for 2016-17 and 2017-18. The MicroFarm is hosted by the Centre for Land and Water which provides fields, sheds, equipment and the Green Shed venue for our meetings and seminars. We greatly appreciate their very significant contributions which make the operation possible.

Mark Redshaw put hours into getting the MicroFarm up and running and spending much of his free-time spraying and monitoring onions for two seasons. Now we have our own small sprayer we have taken that task over, but remain most grateful to Mark.

Special thanks also to Mel at HydroServices for irrigation monitoring, Patrick Nicolle for machinery support, BioRich for lending us a tractor, Hugh Ritchie for his irrigator, FruitFed Supplies for crop protection support, Scott Lawson for seed and machinery, Vigour Seeds and SPS for onion seed and McCain Foods for process crop support.

After a number of years of constant pea crops, we are having a break. Our main focus this season has been on onions, crop variability and its drivers. We have plenty of variability, but which factors are driving still proves elusive.

Aerial view of the MicroFarm taken by DJI Phantom showing replicated soil amendment plots on right, flagged replicated plots in onion zones on left, and at far left drought stressed onion beds, the reason we extended the irrigator

In conjunction with OnionsNZ and Plant & Food,
we held a grower field day in January to discuss the OnionsNZ SFF project.

We do know topography and drainage are critical factors but they do not explain all the variation we are seeing. To assess their impact, we deliberately applied “heavy rain” to some areas and have been comparing these with areas not subjected to a hard40+mm rain event before emergence.

Artificial heavy rain event applied after planting and before emergence

We prepared an OptiSurface plan two years ago but did not implement it as we were keen to explore variation in our onions trials. Perhaps it is time to act on our own advice!

Topomap created from a Trimble RTK GPS survey shows relative elevations. Yellow highest, purple lowest. Surface flow analysis of topographic maps like this show where water can become trapped and pond.
OptiSurface analysis shows where water will pond. In this image, the beds are assumed to be 100mm high. The brown areas will drain, blue and purple areas will have ponding – pale blue least, dark purple most.

The other main crop this season is sweetcorn. We are hosting a series of variety trials and are assessing a soil amendment product to see if it offers an economic advantage to growers.

To assess the soil amendment we set up a six plot replicated trial – with and without the treatment. We randomly split plots to avoid bias, and are taking crop development data through the season. At harvest we will determine paddock yield and the recovery rate of kernels in each plot.

A randomised six plot trial layout for assessing the effect of a soil amendment on a sweetcorn crop. Yellow lines imposed on aerial image from consumer UAV.
AgTech, Automation, LandWISE People, Precision Agriculture, Research, Sensing

In Search of Farm Robots: Ch 1

A version of this article previously appeared in The Grower

Dan Bloomer has been travelling in Australia and Europe asking, “How ready are robots for farmers and how ready are farmers for robots?”

Notable areas of active research and development globally are scouting, weeding and fruit picking.  Success requires machines that can determine and follow a route traversing whatever terrain it must, capture information, identify and selectively remove weeds, and identify, pick and transport fruit.  They have to sense, analyse, plan and act.

Robotics is widespread in industries such as car manufacturing that have the exactly the same task being repeated over and over again. With possible exception of robotic milking, farm operations are not like that. Virtually every single case is unique with unique responses needed.

Many groups around the world are looking at robotic weeding . There are many items needing attention. How do we tell weeds from crop plants? Can we do that fast enough and reliably enough to make a robot commercially viable on-farm? Once identified, how do we optimise robotic arm movement to best attack a patch of weeds?

The Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) at the University of Sydney is well known for its field robots such as the solar powered Ladybird. The new generation Ladybird is known as Rippa, and is currently undergoing endurance testing. Look on YouTube for ACFR videos and you’ll even see SwagBot moving around rolling hill country.

A key theme for Rob Fitch and colleagues is Active Perception: perception being what we can detect with what accuracy and confidence; active meaning in real time and including planning actions. They invest heavily in developing mathematics to get fast results. And they are succeeding.

Using Intel’s RealSense structured light camera it takes them less than half a second to identify and precisely locate groups of apples on a trellis. Within that time they also calculate exactly where to place the camera to get a second confirming view.

Smart maths allow ACFR scientists to capture 3D images and identify and locate apples in less than half a second
Smart maths allow ACFR scientists to capture 3D images and identify and locate apples in less than half a second

Cheryl McCarthy and colleagues at the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture (NCEA) are conducting a range of research projects that integrate autonomous sensing and control with on-farm operations to robotically manage inputs within a crop. Major projects include automation for weed spot spraying, adaptive control for irrigation optimisation, and remote crop surveillance using cameras and remotely piloted aircraft.

At LandWISE 2015, Cheryl reported on their machine vision and sensing system for weed detection systems that uses depth and colour segmentation and a new processing technique to operate at commercial ground speeds of 10-15 km/h.

Now Cheryl is using UAVs to capture photos of crops, stitching the pictures to get a whole paddock image, then splitting it up again to efficiently identify and locate individual plants and weeds. This is enabling her to create accurate maps some other weed destroying robot can use.

cherylmccarthy
Research at the University of Southern Queensland investigates UAVs to scout paddocks combined with image stitching and analysis for interpretation to create maps of weeds for later treatment

SwarmFarm founders, Andrew and Jocie Bate grow cereals and pulses near Emerald. Spray-fallow is used to conserve water in this dryland environment and WeedSeeker® and Weedit® technologies reduce chemical use to a very small percentage of traditional broadcast application.

4WD SwarmFarm robots carrying WeedSeeker technology cover the paddock spraying only living weeds
4WD SwarmFarm robots carrying WeedSeeker technology cover the paddock spraying only living weeds

With large areas, most growers move to bigger machinery to maximise labour efficiency. This has a number of adverse effects including significant soil damage and inability to work small areas or work efficiently around obstacles such as trees.

SwarmFarm chose robots as practical light weight equipment. They reason that several small machines working together reduce soil impact and have the same work rate as one big machine. Andrew estimates that adoption of 8 m booms versus 34 m booms could increase the effective croppable area in Queensland by 2%.

Are these robots ready for farmers? Are farmers ready for these robots?

Only SwarmFarm has multiple machines currently working on farm in Australia. They are finalising a user interface that will allow non-graduate engineers (smart farmers) to manage the machines.

The question that remains is, “Why would I buy a specialised machine when I can put a driver on a cheaper conventional tractor or higher work rate sprayer and achieve the same?”

Is it the same?

Travel to Australia was supported by a Trimble Foundation Study Grant

Agronomy, AgTech, Controlled Traffic Systems, Precision Agriculture, Research

In Search of Farm Robots: Ch2 Denmark

This article originally appeared in “The Grower”

A visit to Denmark in search of farm robotics expanded to include wide span tractors, controlled traffic farming, growing Christmas trees and farm nutrient management plans and audits.

Automation of the agricultural sector has EU and government attention and funding. Despite an influx of refugees and workers from Eastern Europe, the focus is filling a labour void in the agricultural sector.

The new USD Tek Centre housing an engineering research group of around 500 people at the University of Southern Denmark (USD) illustrates the investment. 

The Tek Centre at University of Southern Denmark illustrates the investment Europe is making in agritech development

Research institutes, municipalities and government are working on a proposal to turn a nearby commercial airport into a specialised unpiloted aerial system (UAS/UAV) facility.

USD is developing unmanned aerial systems to distribute beneficial insects to grapevines. Ground application results in losses as many beneficials cannot climb to colonise the target plant. The technical hurdle is UAS control – needing to control flight to release the beneficials from 200-500 mm above the canopy.

USD Robotic specialist Kjeld Jensen promotes open source software as key to increasing the pace of development. Having access to standards, stable architecture and software libraries means researchers can focus on new things rather than constantly reinventing the wheel.

An innovation hub in Struer was established in a facility donated by Ericsson Communications when they shifted research and development from Denmark. It is now home to about 150 technologists in a number of start-up companies.

Resident ConPleks Innovation develops automation technology for other manufacturers (for example Intelligent Marking and MinkPapir). The availability of such support makes it much easier for traditional companies to enter the field of robotics. 

At the Agro Food Park in Aarhus, AgroIntelli has a focus on autonomy for weed control in organic productions systems, a movement apparently stronger in Europe than in New Zealand. This start-up grew out of a disbanded Kongskilde R&D group.

Safety of unmanned systems is critical. All the above are involved in “SAFE”, a project that brings together major agricultural machinery manufacturers and universities to develop advanced sensors, perception algorithms, rational behaviours for semi-automated tractors and implements and finally autonomous robots.

Hans Henrik Pedersen is well known to LandWISE members for his work on controlled traffic farming and gantry tractors. At Kjeldahl Farms on Samso we saw the prototype 9m ASA-Lift gantry. At 20+tonnes plus another 20+ tonnes with a hopper of onions it’s not a small machine. It seems version two will be different, but development funding is yet to be found.

The ASA-Lift 9m wide span gantry tractor at Kjeldahl Farms

At the Aarhus Agro Food Park Dan Bloomer delivered a presentation on Precision Agriculture in New Zealand to 70 Dutch agronomists and agrichem representatives touring Denmark. An afternoon field trip visited a biogas generator on a dairy farm and a facility for high quality Christmas tree production.

Specialist equipment for commercial production of Christmas trees fits narrow rows and automates labour intensive tasks

Other presentations covered the operation of SEGES, a farmer owned agricultural research and extension organisation performing more than 1,000 field trials every year in partnership with universities, government departments, businesses and trade associations.

SEGES covers all aspects of farming and farm management – from crop production, the environment, livestock farming and organic production to finance, tax legislation, IT architecture, accounting, HR, training and conservation.

A lot of work involves nutrient management. Denmark introduced nitrogen regulations in 1994. We are only now at a similar position. Caps introduced to stop leaching halved losses by 2014 by which time the nitrogen cap was about 25% lower than the economic optimum.  With most benefit coming from improved handling of animal manures, the cap is now being lifted.

All Danish farmers must have nutrient management plans with budgets and fertiliser purchase documentation and application records. They are must report annually, work mostly being done by about 3,500 consultants. All fertiliser sales are reported to the Environment Agency so farm reports can be audited.

Dan’s travel was supported by a Trimble Foundation Study Grant

AgTech, Automation, LandWISE People, Precision Agriculture, Research, Sensing, Soil, Tillage

In Search of Farm Robots: Ch3 Switzerland, France and England

This article originally appeared in “The Grower”

A desire to reduce soil compaction and avoid high and inefficient use of chemicals and energy inspired Steve Tanner and Aurelien Demaurex to found eco-Robotix in Switzerland.

Their solution is a light-weight fully solar-powered weeding robot, a 2 wheel drive machine with 2D camera vision and basic GPS. Two robotic arms position herbicide nozzles or a mechanical device for precision weed control.

Steve Tanner lab testing the exoRobotix vision and robotic weed control system

The ecoRobotix design philosophy is simplicity and value: avoiding batteries cuts weight, technology requirements and slashes capital costs. It is a step towards their vision of cheap autonomous machines swarming around the farm.

 Bought by small farms, Naio Technologies’ Oz440 is a small French robot designed to mechanically weed between rows. The robots are left weeding while the farmer spends time on other jobs or serving customers. Larger machines for vegetable cropping and viticulture are in development.

Prototypes V1, V2 and V3; precursors to the Naio Oz440 show the steps in a robot’s development

Naio co-founder Gaetan Severac notes Oz440 has no GPS, relying instead on cameras and LiDAR range finders to identify rows and navigate. These are small machines with a total price similar to a conventional agricultural RTK-GPS system, so alternatives are essential. 

Tech companies have responded and several “RTK-GPS” systems are now available under $US1000. Their accuracy and reliability is not known!

Thorvald an example of research collaboration: Norwegian University robot being automated at University of Lincoln show the common design of four wheel steer and four wheel drive

Broccoli is one of the world’s largest vegetable crops and is almost entirely manually harvested, which is costly. Leader Tom Duckett says robotic equipment being developed at the University of Lincoln in England is as good as human pickers at detecting broccoli heads of the right size, especially if the robot can pick through the night.  With identification in hand, development is now on mechanical cutting and collecting.

In 1996, Tillett and Hague Technologies demonstrated an autonomous roving machine selectively spraying individual cabbages.  Having done that, they determined that tractors were effective and concentrated on automating implements. They are experts in vision systems and integration with row and plant identification and machinery actuation, technology embedded in Garford row crop equipment. 

Parrish Farms has their own project adapting a Garford mechanical to strip spray between onion rows. Nick Parrish explained that Black Grass control was difficult, and as available graminicides strip wax off onions boom spraying prevents use of other products for up to two weeks.

Simon Blackmore is a global leader in farm robotics thinking at Harper Adams University. His effort to address robotic safety issues includes a seven level system:

  1. Route planning to avoid hazards and known obstacles
  2. Laser range finder to sense objects and define them as obstacles
  3. Wide area safety curtain sensing ground objects at 2m
  4. Dead man’s handle possibly via smartphone
  5. Collapsible bumper as a physical soft barrier that activates Stop
  6. Big Red Buttons anyone close can see and use to stop the machine
  7. Machines that are small, slow and light minimise inertia

“Hands free hectare” is Harper Adams University’s attempt to grow a commercial crop using open source software and commercially available equipment in an area no-one enters.

Harper Adams research to develop a robotic strawberry harvester is notable for the integration of genetics for varieties with long stalks, a growing system that has plants off the ground, and the robotic technologies to identify, locate and assess the ripeness of individual berries and pick them touching only the peduncle (stalk).

So what have I learned about farm robotics?

  • People believe our food production systems have to change
  • Farm labour is in short supply throughout the western world
  • Machines can’t get bigger as the soil can’t support that
  • Robotics has huge potential but when
  • Safety is a key issue but manageable
  • There is huge investment in research at universities, but also in industry
  • It’s about rethinking the whole system not replacing the driver
  • There are many technologies available, but probably not the mix you want for your application.

As Simon Pearson at the National Centre for Food Manufacturing says, “It’s a Frankenstein thing, this agrobotics. There are all sorts of great bits available but you have to seek them out and stitch them together yourself to make the creature you want.”

Dan’s travel was supported by a Trimble Foundation Study Grant

AgTech, Drainage, Nutrients, Projects, Soil, Water

Drainage and Erosion Planning

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The Arawhata Catchment Integrated Storm Water Management project is drawing to a close, the majority of work is done but farm follow-ups continue. The aim of the project was to reduce crop loss from ponding and minimise erosion of soil to Lake Horowhenua. 

We completed OptiSurface drainage analyses for 26 Levin properties covering 450ha of intensive vegetable cropping. OptiSurface calculates flood patterns and erosion risk and creates cut & fill maps for GPS levelling. An example is shown in our earlier post “Mapping for Drainage”.

Drainage and Erosion Management Plans were developed for each block. The plans identify drainage problem areas and erosion risks and recommend management strategies to respond.

Individual farms have done significant work to prevent erosion and reduce crop damage. Farmer actions to reduce sediment runoff and ponding include realigning bed direction, levelling, grassed headlands and drains and swales and sediment traps.

Stages in headland redevelopment

Original design used narrow headlands subject to pugging in wet weather with high risk of slumping soil into vegetation-free drains
Headland lowered to ensure adequate drainage from furrows. Vegetation being encouraged to protect drain from sediment inflows
Land-shaping created a much wider headland for a greater vegetation buffer between cultivated land and drains
Completed headland with its well-established vegetated buffer filtering sediment from drainage water

Now farms are required to have consent in this catchment, the Drainage and Erosion Management Plans are a useful component of the overall Farm Nutrient Management Plans required.

AgTech, Nutrients, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research, Soil

Fertiliser Spreader Calibration

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We successfully completed our SFF project “On-farm Fertiliser Spreader Calibration” and launched the online tool, www.fertspread.nz earlier this year.

Some key messages:

  • Our testing found wide performance variation
  • Most new machines do a good job if set up correctly
  • Caution is essential spreading blended fertilisers or when bout widths exceed 30 m
  • Visible striping indicates > 40% application variability and at least a 20% yield penalty.
  • Fertiliser ballistics play a critical role
Setting out a line of catch trays to test fertiliser application uniformity
Driving over a line of catch trays

We ran a number of workshops from Waikato to Ashburton reaching a wide range of farmers and industry people. Information, training handouts and how-to YouTube video clips are on the LandWISE website. See www.fertspread.nz for the on-line calculator and field recording sheets.

We are grateful for strong support from Miles Grafton and Ian Yule at Massey University.

This project was co-funded by the Foundation for Arable Research (FAR), the Fertiliser Association (FertResearch) and MPI Sustainable Farming Fund.

More at www.landwise.org.nz/projects/fert-calibration

AgTech, Automation, LandWISE People, Precision Agriculture

NZ AgTech meets Silicon Valley

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This article previously appeared in The Grower

You can read about things, but actually experiencing them is something else.

Dan Bloomer joined Callaghan Innovation , NZTE and two dozen New Zealand agricultural technology organisations for a week in San Francisco.

The purpose was to understand how New Zealand could fit with the US agricultural technology scene. We visited UC Davis, agricultural technology companies, Silicon Valley start-ups and venture capital firms.  We visited an almond orchard, a vineyard and a winery in Napa Valley. We went to a large raspberry farm in Salinas.

Driscoll’s berry fruit operation highlighted the difference in scale between New Zealand and the USA. With $US 3 billion in annual sales and a global growing and sales network, they have an advanced and comprehensive R&D programme.

The issues facing Driscoll’s are fully familiar to any farmer in New Zealand: produce more from less, reduce wastage all along the supply chain, prevent nutrient loss to water, address the disappearing labour force, meet increasing regulatory requirements, prove provenance and food safety, and get the best product to the right market in excellent condition at an acceptable price.

While at Driscoll’s we heard from technology companies with whom they are collaborating to address issues facing them now and in the future.

AgroBot is a machine developed by a Spanish entrepreneur to automate picking small produce like strawberries.

HarvestPort provides an on-line connection to share seasonally used resources such as fruit bins or crates.

Growcentia is developing microbial biostimulants to increase crop production and decrease the environmental impact of agriculture.

GeoVisual is focused on remote sensing and big data analytics to improve and predict crop yields, better manage croplands and improve harvests.

Food Origins is focused on precision data collection and analytic services for hand harvested produce.

Each of these could add value in New Zealand.

AgTech is growing very fast. Wharf42 reported that 499 companies attracted US $4.6 billion of venture capital investment in 2015, nearly doubling 2014 figures. 303 companies were in the US. India came second with 64 and Australia 11th with 6 investments.  Although we have some local investment, New Zealand didn’t register on the global stage.

In New Zealand we are impressed by million dollar investments. Climate Corporation was bought by Monsanto for $US 1 billion. It aims “to build a digitized world where every farmer is able to optimize and flawlessly execute every decision on the farm”.  Yamaha just bought a share in UAV company PrecisionHawk in a $US 18 million deal.

We spoke with venture capital firms about accessing funding. Swamped by opportunities within two hours of the San Francisco CBD, they have no need of New Zealand. So New Zealand needs to have excellent technology, travel to them and have obvious local presence.

The week of intense stimulation, new experiences and gaining new understandings left me very positive about New Zealand technology capability and about our prospects in the world agtech markets.

We have numerous New Zealand companies that easily compete on a technology level with what we saw.  We can do it, and with Callaghan Innovation , NZTE and private initiatives, there are things in place to help New Zealand companies succeed in this enormous market. But we have to think differently and execute very well.

When the right technology gets presented in the right way in the right place things can happen very fast. After winning a major US innovation award for its noise-reducing drone technology, nine month old New Zealand startup Dotterel Technologies is on a fast track to global success. We need more Dotterels.

This visit was organised by Wharf42, NZTE, Callaghan Innovation and the Silicon Valley Forum.