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A couple of weeks ago, John Harvey, Managing Director of AgriFutures Australia, spent a week in New Zealand. The visit was designed to provide John with a better insight into New Zealand’s rapidly evolving agritech ecosystem.

I had the pleasure of spending 36 hours with John as we visited agritech companies in the Bay of Plenty & the Waikato. It was not AgriFutures first visit to NZ. That had happened in May when the organisation attended both the ’10 billion mouths’ conference in Tauranga and the formal launch dinner for Agritech New Zealand.

The opportunity for increasing collaboration with Australia’s agritech community has been on my radar for some time. When I am in London, San Francisco (tomorrow) or New York, New Zealand & Australia tend to get bundled together. It’s time that this was recognised by our respective governments. Similar sized economies in other parts of the world have understood the value of regional collaboration for years.

As an example, on Thursday I am meeting the founder of Silicon Vikings, the collaborative network that has brought the Scandinavian nations together to create much more significant, collective impact in Silicon Valley. If New Zealand & Australia’s agritech sectors want to generate that same regional dynamic, then greater collaboration is a key metric going forward.

Yesterday, I took my first step on this journey. Following John’s visit to New Zealand, AgriFutures invited me to join the Steering Committee for their major agritech conference in 2019: evokeAG. It takes place on 19-20 February in Melbourne.

On yesterday’s conference call, we were joined by the other Steering Committee members: Agthentic, AgFunder, Austrade, CSIRO, KPMG & Sprout X. We discussed some of the logistics around the conference and how New Zealand’s agritech community could be fully engaged. This opportunity is real. Whilst evokeAG was primarily established to promote the Australian agritech and foodtech sectors, its success depends very much on how it can be positioned as a regional story. This in my view adds significant value to its purpose. It is critical to attract targeted international delegations from Europe, North America, LATAM & Asia. It’s also hugely important for the region’s wider agritech ecosystem as it seeks to scale and generate more visibility on the global stage.

Opportunities for New Zealand’s agritech sector include:

• Showcasing the latest research and development across agriculture and food coming from Australia & New Zealand
• Start-up Alley – to showcase New Zealand start-up and early stage businesses to an international audience
• Providing a platform and stage for a number of kiwi thought leaders in the agribusiness space to share their knowledge
• Creating new opportunities for New Zealand agritech businesses to better understand and be better prepared for entry into the Australian market
• Attracting emerging agritech and food tech solutions for deployment into Australia & New Zealand

Tomorrow, I fly out to San Francisco. Reaching out to the global agritech ecosystem is a demonstration of the maturity and place in which New Zealand’s own agritech sector now occupies. I’m reminded of the ’10 billion mouths’ conference theme: ‘New Zealand’s agritech sector is #GoodForTheWorld‘.

Nowhere is that truer, nor more needed, than now.

In less than 3 weeks, 30+ New Zealand agritech delegates will be joining the 2018 Silicon Valley AgTech Immersion Program & Conference. This will be the third year that Wharf42 has helped facilitate the event, together with our partners Silicon Valley Forum, Callaghan Innovation & NZTE.

When we first embarked on developing the program back in 2015, we could not have envisaged just how significant the long-term impact would be on New Zealand’s emerging agritech sector. The economic ($$’s) return through increased cross-border trade is now being measured in the US$ multi-millions, with at least five of the original cohort of early stage companies now having an established presence in North America.

Later this month, a host of new faces and companies will be joining this journey. Welcome then: AgFirst Consultants, AGMARDT, AgResearch, AgriSmart, Agritech New Zealand, Autogrow, Blinc, Blockbit, Callaghan Innovation, Giltrap Engineering, Hop Revolution, IXOM, Jenkins Freshpac Systems, Marlborough Garlic, Miro Trading, Next Farm, NZTE, NZ Tech, NZVIF, Paysource, Plant & Food Research, Robotics Plus, Seeka, Sprout, Thelning Design, Trimax and Zespri. What an amazing cross-section of New Zealand’s world-leading agritech science & research capability joining forces with a number of the country’s most exciting, emerging agritech businesses, to meet and engage with Silicon Valley’s vast agtech ecosystem. We are absolutely stoked.

Last week, the delegation spent a day at the Waikato Innovation Park for a pre-program briefing. We heard from past delegates including Steve Saunders (Robotics Plus), Matt Flowerday (GPS-it) & Darryn Keiller (Autogrow) about their experiences of previous programs and where this experience has taken them since. We were also joined by representatives from NZ Story & NZVIF as we prepped the team on what to expect from, and how to prepare for, the week ahead. I think its fair to say that the delegation is pretty well pumped, locked and ready to go.

For me personally, this will be another opportunity to connect with a number of now established friends in the wider San Francisco Bay area’s agritech community. And this provides some glimpse to where history is about to be made. To build on the value that these successive programs have developed, we need to establish a more permanent set of bridges that connect New Zealand’s agritech businesses with the capital, networks and in-market farm access necessary to help scale our sector. Building those bridges and developing these connections has been a priority of several folk over the past 12 months and I expect to be able to share some of the results of that work when I report back from San Francisco later this month.

These are exciting times for New Zealand agritech. As the global demand for more food grows, we are well placed to provide the knowledge, the products and the services to help make that happen. This month’s Silicon Valley Immersion Program and Conference is just one more step in that direction. What happens over the next few months could well determine just where New Zealand sits in this global industry in the years ahead.

Over the past few weeks, I have been speaking to many players in New Zealand’s emerging agritech sector. As Executive Director of Agritech New Zealand, it’s an important part of my job description.

At the same time, I’ve also been speaking to a large number of New Zealand’s primary sector end users – farmers, orchardists and some of their trusted advisors. A common theme is emerging.

Whilst the agritech sector is addressing a number of end user issues, the delivery is coming in the form of a broad array of different solutions and apps. Each one addresses a specific problem, but each one has a different GTM model and each one requires a different set of purchasing behaviours. And this is the rub.

Typical farmers or orchardists (at least those who I have met) do not want to have to deal with multiple tech solutions from multiple providers. They have, in their view, a set of common issues which they want to be addressed by a single platform; two at most.

There will always of course to be the specific challenge which only a bespoke solution can manage. In the main however, issues around soil, nitrogen, effluent, irrigation, pasture growth and supplementary feed (as examples) apply across most properties.

This poses a challenge and one that was highlighted by the recent visit of international delegates to the ’10 billion mouths’ conference in Tauranga during Techweek. In a relatively small market such as New Zealand, how many ‘soil sensor’ companies do we need? If the rest of the country’s agribusiness sector has taught us anything, only 2 – 3 such vertically-focused companies will survive and flourish. Duopoly in New Zealand’s primary sector is often the name of the game.

And yet, there are no shortage of new entrants. Each one competing for investment, market share and cut through. How many are fit and ready enough to address the much more significant global market opportunity is questionable. That requires scale, and this poses a much bigger question for the country’s agritech sector.

When I see emerging agritech businesses coming out of the likes of Israel, Holland and Ireland, they have scale. And often and not, this is because these businesses are the result of some early stage M&A activity in those countries. In other words, start-ups in complimentary fields have chosen to work together as a JV or full-on merger in order to provide a platform solution to manage a range of addressable issues. Think of in-field sensors, drones & data analytics all wrapped up in a single solution. Or platform. Or whatever you want to call it.

As the 30+ kiwi agritech companies I am joining next month head off to the 2018 Silicon Valley AgTech Immersion Program & Conference, I expect to witness a number of new examples of these kinds of integrated agritech platform examples in the US. It’s likely to create some interesting and I trust enlightening conversations about the value of more NZ collaboration whilst we are ‘on the bus’.

I certainly hope so.

You can follow our progress whilst in Silicon Valley at the Agritech New Zealand Twitter handle: agritech_nz

Last week, I had the opportunity to represent Agritech New Zealand at two major agtech events in the San Francisco Bay area: The Mixing Bowl IT Food conference in the city and the Forbes Live AgTech Summit in Salinas, Monterey Bay.

In Salinas, I was joined by about 600 other agri innovators, agribusinesses and agri investors. It was good to see Steve Saunders of the Plus Group there, as well as a number of the international delegates who recently visited New Zealand during Techweek18 and attended the ’10 billion mouths’ headline agritech conference in Tauranga.

I’ve visited Salinas several times before. I will be back again next month with an expected 20+ kiwi agritech companies who are taking part in the 2018 Silicon Valley AgTech Immersion Program & Conference. So just what were my biggest takeaways from Forbes Live last week?

The first is that innovation in the agritech sector is growing at an exponential rate, with emerging technologies such as AI taking a serious chunk of both attention and investment. The opportunities that AI offer were a message that resonated during a number of the panel discussions.

The scale of investment was another key learning. US$ 100M investments are now common as new opportunities such as indoor and vertical farming come to the fore.

Plant-based alternative protein players continue to attract investment, but the real riches wait for those working in the cultured meat space. There is a ton of money waiting for evidence of real advances in this sector and no shortage of start-ups globally working to achieve that end.

Two marquees were dedicated to the Forbes Live Innovation Showcase. Early stage companies from a number of countries displayed a range of agritech-focused applications; many were addressing some of the biggest current farmer challenges including labour, water and environment. On the Wednesday morning, I had attended the Thrive Accelerator demo day and met a number of these same entrepreneurs exhibiting in the Showcase Expo.

It was good to catch up with Colin Brown waving the kiwi flag at the TracMap stand. Colin and his team have recently left the Western Growers Technology & Innovation Center to occupy new offices just up the road. As they build their North American market presence, they have outgrown the Center and needed more space to expand. It’s a great tribute to Colin and the team. Still based in the Center were Warren Bebb & Jason Wargent from Biolumic. It was good to learn more about their recent significant funding close. Exciting times ahead for the team as they continue to grow their US footprint.

Next month, I will be joining a new cohort of kiwi agritech entrepreneurs visit the region. We will be meeting the team at Thrive and visiting the WG Technology & Innovation Center. We will also be spending a few hours at Driscoll’s learning not only about some of the technology they deploy to create berry cultivars, but also to listen to several of the same early stage companies pitch their business propositions.

Last week reinforced my strongly held view that New Zealand agri-technology competes with the best. If we simply sit back however and don’t take proactive steps to engage with the wider global market, both ag and investment, then we will never reach our full potential.

Agritech New Zealand’s purpose is to ensure that New Zealand becomes a global leader in science & innovation to benefit the global primary sector. Initiatives that we have planned over the coming weeks and months are designed to help reach that goal. You can read more about them as we publish those details to this site.

Last week, I attended the Mixing Bowl IT Food conference and the Forbes AgTech Summit in the San Francisco Bay area.  These annual events showcase some of the best startup and early stage agritech companies emerging from the USA.  They also provide a platform to benchmark the performance of New Zealand’s agritech sector against our most competitive global peers.  Having viewed pitches at both events, my assessment is that New Zealand stacks right up there with the best, even if some might regard my view as biased!  So, this month, I’m sharing insights from three influential global thought leaders on the state of New Zealand agritech;  Adrian Percy, the global head of research and development at Bayer CropSciences, Microsoft’s worldwide director of life sciences and agriculture, Claudia Rossler and Arama Kukutai, the co-founder of San Diego based agri-focused investor, Finistere Ventures. You can view their thoughts in the news section below.

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Agritech New Zealand is delighted to be working with Callaghan Innovation to once again support kiwi agritech businesses wanting to attend the annual Silicon Valley AgTech Immersion Program & Conference. This is the third year that New Zealand will be taking a major delegation of early stage and established agritech professionals to learn more about Silicon Valley’s rapidly expanding agtech innovation & investment space.

Over the past two years, 40+ New Zealand agritech businesses have attending the Program and Conference. Many, including TracMap, Robotics Plus, GPS-it and Autogrow have gone on to establish a formal presence in North America to both grow their own footprint and generate increased export sales for NZ.

Traffic has not been one-way. Investors such as George Kellerman from Silicon Valley-based Yamaha Motor Ventures; Driscoll, the world’s largest producer of berries; and other leading US agribusinesses & venture funds, led by Arama Kukutai of Finistere Ventures, have made the return trip (s) to New Zealand. I myself will be back in San Francisco in 10 days’ time, representing Agritech New Zealand at both the Mixing Bowl Food IT & Forbes Live conferences. Momentum is building as New Zealand’s agritech presence in the Bay area becomes more prominent and visible.

From Monday 27 – Thursday 30 August, the New Zealand delegation will be joining an expected 100 other international delegates for the 3-day immersion program and 1-day conference. Callaghan & Agritech New Zealand have been working with our partners, Silicon Valley Forum, to help build this year’s program. On Friday 31 August, we are planning a New Zealand-only day, where we will discuss the opportunities for closer collaboration with partners from across North America.

The focus of this year’s program is around horticulture and cropping.

It’s great to acknowledge the commitment that the team at Callaghan continue to input into this initiative. The payback to New Zealand is immense, as new opportunities for investment into New Zealand agritech businesses become more apparent, and access to the North American market better supported.

Callaghan has today released more details of the 2018 Immersion Program & Conference. Agritech New Zealand encourages you to view the information here. https://www.callaghaninnovation.govt.nz/news-and-events/silicon-valley-agritech-2018

Agritech New Zealand will be joining the kiwi delegation at its base this year in San Jose. We very much hope that you will join us.

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He is a key speaker next week during Techweek. He will be one of many glittering international delegates attending the 10 billion mouths Agritech conference at Tauranga on May 23. Agriculture and food contribute more than $US37billion to the New Zealand economy annually. New Zealand is the world’s largest exporter of dairy and sheep meat.

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Agritech New Zealand has negotiated a ’10 billion mouths’ conference discount for subscribers to its newsletter and readers of its blog with the organisers of Techweek18.

The cost to attend the ’10 billion mouths’ conference which includes admission to all the sessions, including break-outs, the day’s catering and the after conference Networking Reception is just $295. This includes GST.

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Agritech New Zealand is excited to introduce Andy Triedman to a New Zealand audience. Andy will be joining the high-profile delegation of leading global agritech thought leaders and investors, led by Arama Kukutai of Finistere Ventures, when they visit the country from 22 – 25 May.

Andy will be attending the ‘10 billion mouths’ agritech conference in Tauranga on Wednesday 23 May.

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Agritech New Zealand is excited to introduce Claudia Rossler to a New Zealand audience. Claudia will be joining the high-profile delegation of leading global agritech thought leaders and investors, led by Arama Kukutai of Finistere Ventures, when they visit the country from 22 – 25 May.

Claudia will be attending the ‘10 billion mouths’ agritech conference in Tauranga on Wednesday 23 May.

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Agritech New Zealand is excited to introduce Richard O’Gorman to a New Zealand audience. Richard will be joining the high-profile delegation of leading global agritech thought leaders and investors, led by Arama Kukutai of Finistere Ventures, when they visit the country from 22 – 25 May.

Richard will be attending the ‘10 billion mouths’ agritech conference in Tauranga on Wednesday 23 May.

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Wharf42, the ’10 billion mouths’ conference co-organiser, has secured an exceptional international panel of experts to discuss the Future of Food. It’s a discussion that strikes at the heart of New Zealand major economic powerhouse; agriculture and the future of farming.

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Agritech New Zealand is excited to introduce Sanjeev Krishnan to a New Zealand audience. Sanjeev will be joining the high-profile delegation of leading global agritech thought leaders and investors, led by Arama Kukutai of Finistere Ventures, when they visit the country from 22 – 25 May.

Sanjeev will be attending and speaking at the ‘10 billion mouths’agritech conference in Tauranga on Wednesday 23 May. As an investor in Beyond Meat & Ripple, he knows a thing or two about the disruption taking place in the foodtech sector.

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Agritech New Zealand is excited to introduce Eric O’Brien to a New Zealand audience. Eric will be joining the high-profile delegation of leading global agritech thought leaders and investors, led by Arama Kukutai of Finistere Ventures, when they visit the country from 22 – 25 May.

Eric will be taking part in the ‘Future of Food ‘panel discussion at the ’10 billion mouths‘ conference in Tauranga on Wednesday 23 May. Recent investments include Impossible and Ripple, two leading disruptors in the synthetic meat and dairy sectors.

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Agritech New Zealand is excited to introduce Cathal Fitzgerald to a New Zealand audience. Cathal will be joining the high-profile delegation of leading global agritech thought leaders and investors, led by Arama Kukutai of Finistere Ventures, when they visit the country from 22 – 25 May.

Cathal will be attending the ‘10 billion mouths’ agritech conference in Tauranga on Wednesday 23 May.

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Agritech New Zealand is excited to introduce Barbara Mazur to a New Zealand audience. Barbara will be joining the high-profile delegation of leading global agritech thought leaders and investors, led by Arama Kukutai of Finistere Ventures, when they visit the country from 22 – 25 May.

Barbara will be attending the ‘10 billion mouths’ agritech conference in Tauranga on Wednesday 23 May.

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Arama should of course need no formal introduction. Arama is of Ngati Maniapoto, Tainui and Te Aupouri descent on his father’s side and spent his formative years in South Taranaki’s dairy sector. Last month it was announced that he led a $6.5m investment round into Palmerston North-based Biolumic. Arama is the keynote speaker at the ‘10 billion mouths’ event next month.

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Agritech New Zealand is excited to introduce Dr. Adrian Percy to a New Zealand audience. Adrian will be joining the high-profile delegation of leading global agritech thought leaders and investors, led by Arama Kukutai of Finistere Ventures, when they visit the country from 22 – 25 May.

Adrian will be attending the ‘10 billion mouths’ agritech conference in Tauranga on Wednesday 23 May.

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