Author Archive

• the strategic importance to our sector of becoming Farm2050’s first ‘Country Partner’ and the opportunity this provides emerging, disruptive New Zealand businesses to work on some of the really big problems facing the world’s agricultural industry. This partnership also provides access to both connected global capital and a number of major international agribusinesses.
• partnering with Western Growers, North America’s largest producers of fresh produce, to address key challenges around labour and the need to automate more on-farm processes and applications. This is creating significant new commercial pathways for New Zealand agritech businesses to enter a major offshore market.
• working with Callaghan Innovation and NZTE to ensure that New Zealand’s agritech sector takes full advantage of the upcoming Trans-Tasman agritech conference, evokeAG. This is being held in Melbourne from 19–20 February 2019.
• designing a major one day event during Fieldays 2019 to showcase the best of New Zealand agritech to our farmers, growers and orchardists, as well as international delegates. This will take place in the Bledisloe Centre at Mystery Creek on 13 June 2019.
• establishing working groups that address key challenges facing the primary sector. These groups will make recommendations to Government for potential policy and regulation setting changes, where appropriate, to improve the productivity and sustainability of the sector.
• supporting a major new initiative to identify disruptive technologies in nutrients; both from a standpoint of application, measurement and efficiency, as well as novel nutrient technologies such as microbiome/soil health technologies.

There is plenty more in the pipeline and I will be working with Agritech New Zealand’s Executive Council so we can soon share more of our work programme plans.

Later this month, I will be travelling to the AgTech Nexus Europe conference in Dublin. I will be meeting several prominent members of the Farm2050 collective and meeting representatives of Enterprise Ireland to discuss participation in next year’s Irish Ploughing Championships. This is a major opportunity for New Zealand’s dairy tech sector.

I look forward to reporting back from Ireland next month, in what will be the final Agritech New Zealand newsletter for 2018.

Ngā mihi

Peter Wren-Hilton

Executive Director

Welcoming our new members this month
Blinc Innovation
Callaghan Innovation
Cucumber
Data Engineers
Farmlands Cooperative
Fonterra Cooperative
Gallagher Group
HGM Legal
Information Power (Vinea Software)
IoA
KPMG
Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC)
Meander
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Enterprise (MBIE)
New Zealand National Fieldays
New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE)
New Zealand Venture Investment Fund (NZVIF)
NZ Controls
Onfarm Data
PAANZ
Priority One
Regen
Spacebase
Spark New Zealand
Sprout Accelerator
VirtualSpace
Woodhaven Gardens
Zag (Solitus NZ)
Zespri

NZ HI-TECH AWARDS – Open for entries soon!

UpStarters – Share our Tech Story

NEWS

Did you know that Canterbury has over 70% of New Zealand’s irrigated land? Learn more at Blinc Innovation’s Creating a Sustainable Farming Future at the New Zealand Agricultural Show, 14-15 November in Canterbury. Seminars include biosecurity, innovation and water resilience.

Connect with the New Zealand delegation at evokeAG, 19-20 February, 2019 in Melbourne. Discussions include AgData, AI, food provenance, robotic farming, new value chains and more. Early bird tickets have been extended till 11 November.

Join the New Zealand IoT Alliance’s first Connect Event on 20 November in Auckland. Discussion includes security analysis and IoT at the edge

Register for the 2019 Sprout Accelerator cohort. Entries for the inaugural #TechRocketshipANZ close 23 November.

In international news, New Zealand has once again topped the World Bank’s ranking of the best country to start and run a business!

Missed Microsoft’s Future Now event in Auckland last month? Watch the keynote talks here. Also, view the highlights from the TIN100 report.

Learn more about Google’s AI for Social Good programme, including the AI Impact Challenge, to help solve some of the world’s biggest challenges! Applications close 22 January.

Entries for the 2019 Hi-Tech Awards open on 3 December. Join the launch events on 28 November in Auckland, 5 December in Wellington and 6 December in Christchurch. Save the date for the Awards Gala Dinner on 24 May in Auckland.

Agritech New Zealand is a membership funded organisation, so if you are not already a member, please consider joining us.  Have you been forwarded this newsletter?  Receive your own copy each month, simply subscribe here.

On 31 August, Farm2050, the global collective of leading agritech venture funds and corporate agribusinesses, selected New Zealand as its first country partner as a first step towards creating an ecosystem that will allow Kiwi agritech companies to scale in a non-linear way.

Since then, Agritech New Zealand has been working closely with the Farm2050 collective to identify strategies to address some of the really big challenges facing both New Zealand and worldwide agriculture. Following recent discussions, we are therefore delighted to advise that Innovation Endeavors and Finistere Ventures have decided to collaborate on leading the first major Farm2050 project focused on disruptive technologies in nutrients, both from a standpoint of application, measurement and efficiency, as well as novel nutrient technologies such as microbiome/soil health technologies. This will include accelerating trials around nutrient measurement, new products and methods of delivery as well as approaches to managing and mitigating environmental impacts such as runoff.

From Agritech New Zealand’s perspective, this initiative addresses some of the key issues facing the country’s primary sector. Over the coming weeks we will be sharing further detail around this first project and invite New Zealand research organisations, government agencies and the private sector to engage in shaping its scope and focus, as well as participating in its execution. Working directly with globally connected capital and some of the largest international agritech businesses will enable New Zealand’s agritech community to accelerate this activity in ways not seen before.

As part of our wider Farm2050 strategy, Agritech New Zealand will be organising field trials and partnering with industry stakeholders to work on specific areas of need, initially focusing on nutrients, automation and the creation of a “digital academy”.

On a recent conference call with the collective, I spoke to the innovation leads of many of the world’s largest agritech firms. These included Bayer CropScience, Syngenta & Corteva. Scaling New Zealand’s agritech sector with connected capital and access to these multinational partners is critical if we are going to not only contribute to feeding 10 billion mouths by 2050, but in ways that are sustainable and friendly to the environment.

Identifying New Zealand disruptive technologies in nutrients is a great place to start.

Imaged sourced: Chesapeake Bay Program

Following the signing of two major strategic partnerships with Farm2050 and Western Growers, Agritech New Zealand is working on a number of exciting new initiatives.  The partnerships provide an opportunity to rapidly scale all aspects of New Zealand’s AgriTech ecosystem including research, industry, government and investment.
 
To provide a better understanding of these opportunities, Agritech New Zealand is hosting a nationwide roadshow in October.  We plan to provide insights into how local AgriTech businesses can take part in these initiatives.
 
Join the roadshow in your city and meet Agritech New Zealand, Callaghan Innovation and our local hosts to learn more about how your organisation can benefit from:

• connecting with major New Zealand Tech Alliance members including the AI Forum, BioTechNZ, IoT Alliance and NZTech.
• engaging with Callaghan Innovation to support your research and development capability.
• the global collective of venture capital firms that comprise, Farm2050.
• the strategic partnership with Western Growers, the largest network of fresh produce farmers and growers in North America.  Can you leverage this unique market opportunity for your tech?
• participating in the evokeAG conference. Are you ready to export to the Australian market?
• joining working groups and workshops focussed on major issues affecting the country’s primary sector and technology’s role in addressing them.
• meeting and engaging with key stakeholders in New Zealand’s emerging AgriTech space.

Register to attend this free event series on 9 October in Palmerston North, 12 October in Wellington, 15 October in Nelson, 16 October in Lincoln, 19 October in Dunedin, 23 October in Hamilton, 24 October in Auckland and 25 October in Tauranga.
 
Our roadshow is about you and how we can help grow your business, so please reserve your free ticket today!  
 
As we tour New Zealand, we look forward to meeting you and showing you how Agritech New Zealand is connecting, promoting and advancing AgriTech.
 
Ngā mihi
Peter Wren-Hilton
Executive Director

NZ Cyber Security Summit – Explore the Issues

UpStarters – Share our Tech Story

NEWS

Early bird tickets are now available for evokeAG , 19-20 February, 2019 in Melbourne.  Conversations include AgData, AI, food provenance, robotic farming, new value chains and more.  Learn more.

Calling all New Zealand AgriTech startups embracing practical application of new tech.  Apply to enter evokeAG’s Pitch Tent by Friday 28 September and you could win free flights and accommodation to Melbourne!  

Make the most of Expo 2020 Dubai, with NZTE’s Gulf Opportunities Showcase in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch in October.

Register for the 2019 Sprout Accelerator.  The five month accelerator is designed for AgriTech startups.  Learn what’s involved, eligibility, how it works and other FAQs.

With over 700 incidents in the last quarter, New Zealand is facing a growing number of cyber incidentsas reported in CERT’s latest quarterly update.  CERT’s Cyber Smart Week is 8-12 October.  Check out their new resources and become an official partner.

Is your company ready to scale up with international growth? Enter the inaugural #TechRocketshipANZAwards.  Categories include clean growth, feeding the nation, tech for change and more.  Entries close 23 November.  

Discover the practical applications of Blockchain technology.  Blockworksis 12 October in Auckland.  Save these 2019 event dates; Tech Marketers conference on 28 February, AI-Day on 28 March andTechweek 20-26 May.

Agritech New Zealand is a membership funded organisation, so if you are not already a member, please consider joining us.  Have you been forwarded this newsletter?  Receive your own copy each month, simply subscribe here.

Visit our website for more news, events and opportunities!

9 October: Palmerston North: https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/the-2018-agritech-new-zealand-showcase-palmerston-north-tickets-50247491600

12 October: Wellington: https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/the-2018-agritech-new-zealand-showcase-wellington-tickets-50153586728

15 October: Nelson: https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/the-2018-agritech-new-zealand-showcase-nelson-tickets-50371205632

16 October: Lincoln (Christchurch): https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/the-2018-agritech-new-zealand-showcase-lincoln-tickets-50247764416

19 October: Dunedin: https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/the-2018-agritech-new-zealand-showcase-dunedin-tickets-50339090575

23 October: Hamilton: https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/the-2018-agritech-new-zealand-showcase-hamilton-tickets-50248054283

24 October: Auckland: https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/the-2018-agritech-new-zealand-showcase-auckland-tickets-50248278955

25 October: Tauranga: https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/the-2018-agritech-new-zealand-showcase-tauranga-tickets-50248394300

This is about you and how we can help grow your business. Reserve your free ticket today and learn how Agritech New Zealand is connecting, promoting and advancing the country’s agritech sector.

Innovative AgriTech offers enormous potential for the New Zealand economy says, NZTech CEO and Agritech New Zealand Chair, Graeme Muller. 

Graeme was one of 30 New Zealand delegates attending the Silicon Valley Forum AgriTech immersion programme in San Jose, California.    

Speaking to RNZ’s Midday Rural News last week from California, he said AgriTech is potentially New Zealand’s biggest opportunity for the future. 
He explains why here.

Historically, the global agricultural industry has been slow in its uptake of technology, but this is changing as it looks to innovate and solve significant problems.  These include rising labour shortages, environmental pressures, adverse weather events and feeding a global 10 billion population by 2050.On return to New Zealand, Muller said closer Californian ties are crucial to help produce a thriving economy. 

Want to know more?  Subscribe to receive updates from Agritech New Zealand. It’s free and will take you less than a minute.

Where to next? As those of you who might have read these blog posts before will know, Agritech New Zealand signed two important Strategic Partnership Agreements last week; one with North America’s largest growers of fresh produce, Western Growers and one with Farm2050, the global consortium of leading agri-focused venture firms and major agribusinesses.

Presenting the New Zealand agritech story in a compelling and coherent way was an important backdrop to those discussions. As a country renowned for its high quality agricultural produce and wide-ranging and sophisticated farming systems, it’s important that we understand how to tell and share our agritech story.

As New Zealand’s agritech sector continues to reach out to international markets, it’s therefore great to acknowledge that this work has been recognised by government. Right now, NZTech is working with the team at NZTE and New Zealand Story to help curate the message. Agritech New Zealand is aligning itself to this work and we are encouraging others in the sector to do the same.

In San Jose, the theme of the New Zealand panel presentation at last Thursday’s conference was ‘How can NZ agritech help feed the world’. So much of our domestic focus is on producing high quality food to feed 40 million people around the world, we sometimes forget that this accounts for only around 0.5% of the global population. Our tech however can help other nations increase the production of their food needs in much more sustainable ways. By doing so, not only do we increase New Zealand’s agritech export sales, we also help the world feed the remaining 99.5%.

This was the message that resonated at the conference. By focusing on the really big picture, the delegates from many countries recognised our point of difference. Nicky Molloy from Callaghan Innovation talked about Kaitiaki, ‘we are guardians of people, place & planet’. The kiwi panel talked about Ingenuity, ‘Challenging the status quo with original and bold solutions’ and Integrity, ‘We come from a good place. We say what we do’. New Zealand’s delegation stood tall and proud in San Jose. The world saw and understood. It’s now time to press ahead with Āwhina ki te whangai i te ao.  

It’s time for our tech to ‘help feed the world’.

Earlier this week, I returned from the 2018 Silicon Valley AgTech Immersion Program where I was joined by more than 30 other kiwi agritech innovators, researchers and investors. We spent four days visiting farms, agritech hubs and learning about the significant challenges that US agriculture faces. A key takeaway from last week’s program was that New Zealand agritech competes with the best. This was confirmed during our delegation’s debrief; we had seen very little that we had not experienced at home.  

While in California, Agritech New Zealand signed two major Strategic Partnership Agreements.  The first with Western Growers, North America’s largest producer of fresh produce (vegetables, fruit and organics). The second with Farm2050, a collective of the world’s largest agritech focused venture funds and agribusinesses. Although these agreements are not directly connected, their outcomes certainly are! They provide New Zealand agritech businesses looking to enter the vast US market with;

• access to globally connected capital through the visibility generated by the Farm2050 collective.
• access to a ‘landing pad’ at the Western Growers Technology & Innovation Center in Salinas.
• access to farms, ranches and orchards across the USA.
• access to major potential agribusiness partners to trial or license New Zealand agritech.

Later this month, I am meeting Ministers Damien O’Connor and David Parker to discuss how Government can help support and facilitate the opportunities that these agreements generate. To further share the benefits of these agreements with our ecosystem, we are planning a roadshow throughout New Zealand during spring. Event dates will be posted on our relaunched website soon.

Closer to home, I have joined the steering committee for AgriFutures Australia’s conference, evokeAG , 19-20 February, 2019 in Melbourne. The event is being positioned as a Trans-Tasman initiative and a number of New Zealand speakers and presenters are expected to take part.  Watch this space for more information!

Locally, Agritech New Zealand has been fulfilling its mandate to bring together ‘everyone and everything’ in the country’s rapidly growing agritech community. Representatives from PAANZ, the Sprout Accelerator, Blinc (formerly known as the Lincoln Hub) and NZTE have joined the organisation’s Executive Council. View its full membership here.

Building a strong and globally competitive New Zealand agritech sector remains a core driver of this organisation.  The new agreements are testament to that and over the coming weeks I expect to be able to announce more major initiatives.  This is a fantastic time to be part of our primary and tech industries. By working together, I firmly believe we can make a difference.

Ngā mihi

Peter Wren-Hilton
Executive Director

Canterbury Tech Summit – Next week!

Upstarters – Share our tech story

Early bird tickets are now available for evokeAG , 19-20 February, 2019 in Melbourne. Conversations include AgData, AI, food provenance, robotic farming, new value chains and more.  Learn more.

Watch Hank Giclas, Senior Vice President, Science, Technology and Strategic Planning at Western Growers discuss New Zealand agritech.

Discover the practical applications of Blockchain technology. Blockworks is 12 October in Auckland.

Join the New Zealand Cyber Security Summit on 18 October in Wellington for more on fighting the next generation of cyber attack.

Attend NZTE’s Export Essentials Workshops, held throughout New Zealand until November.  Learn how to select a market, find channel partners, create a unique value proposition and plan successful market entry.

Complete the New Zealand IoT Alliance’s survey here to help create a clear IoT device certification pathway.  Also, help local tech companies grow by completing the2018 Market Measures survey.

Save these 2019 event dates; Tech Marketers conference on 28 February, AI-Day on 28 March and Techweek 20-26 May.

Have you been forwarded this newsletter?  Receive your own copy.  As we are a membership funded organisation, please learn more about joining us.

On Friday, I signed a Partnership Agreement with Farm2050, a collective of major global venture firms and agribusinesses dedicated to supporting innovation in Agtech.

New Zealand has become Farm2050’s first ‘Country Partner’.

The Agreement was signed on the final day of this year’s Silicon Valley AgTech Immersion Program. I was joined at the signing by the NZ Ambassador to the US, Tim Groser & NZTech CEO, Graeme Muller. The co-signatories from Farm2050 were Arama Kukutai of Finistere Ventures & Dror Berman of Innovation Endeavors.

This is a big deal for New Zealand’s agritech sector. The Farm2050 initiative was established at the back-end of 2014 by Google Chair, Eric Schmidt, and his investment vehicle, Innovation Endeavors. It provides emerging and established New Zealand agritech businesses with the opportunity to engage with major global agribusinesses such as Bayer Crop Science, Corteva Agriscience, Mars & PepsiCo on significant new innovation-driven initiatives. These activities will increase the visibility of emerging New Zealand agritech businesses seeking capital to scale to Farm2050’s venture partners who include Finistere Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, Syngenta Ventures, Fall Line Capital, S2G Ventures & Rabobank.

Agritech New Zealand has been tasked to drive the Partnership. In discussions with Farm2050 partners over the past few months, we have identified a number of areas of potential significant value to our agritech sector. I have made a commitment that New Zealand will not only meet the Farm2050 collective’s initial expectations: It is my intention that we smash them.

The significance of the Farm2050 Country Partnership was enhanced by the signing of the Western Growers Strategic Partnership Agreement on Wednesday. This provides emerging New Zealand agritech businesses with access to not only the Western Growers Technology & Innovation Center in Salinas, but also to farmer and grower members across the States.

Whilst these two Agreements are not directly connected, their outcomes are. They provide New Zealand agritech businesses looking to enter the vast US market with;

• Access to globally connected capital through the visibility generated by the Farm2050 collective
• Access to a ‘landing pad’ at the Western Growers facility in Salinas
• Access to farms, ranches & orchards across the States
• Access to major potential agribusiness partners to trial or license our tech

What then next?

I fly back to New Zealand tonight and our Executive Council will begin to immediately socialise the opportunity within the wider New Zealand agritech community.

We are setting up a nationwide roadshow in the Spring where we will explain the opportunity and its potential outcomes for the sector. Details of the roadshow will appear on this website in the next few days.

In summary: I cannot remember a time when there has been such an opportunity for New Zealand’s agritech sector to scale in the global market. It’s an opportunity that I personally intend to drive home.

I’m delighted to able to announce that Agritech New Zealand has signed a significant MOU with Western Growers, the largest producers of fresh produce in North America.

The agreement addresses some of the significant challenges that New Zealand agritech companies have faced when entering the US market. Where to land? Who to speak to? How to validate tech in-market and on-farm? This Agreement answers these questions.

Today, the 30+ New Zealand delegates attending the 2018 Silicon Valley AgTech Immersion Program & Conference are visiting the Western Growers Technology & Innovation Center in Salinas. It’s a place I have been visiting regularly over the past three years as the relationship with Western Growers has grown. Several of the delegates today are already discussing how their businesses and entities can leverage the Agreement to establish a more formal presence within the US market.

Yesterday, we visited Fresno and the Central Valley here in Northern California. We saw at first hand the scale of the region’s agricultural sector. We also experienced some of its challenges: Water, labor & lack of automation. These are challenges that New Zealand’s agritech sector players are uniquely qualified to address.

This is not a one-way agreement. It includes a provision to enable US-based agritech businesses to establish a presence in New Zealand to continue R&D during the northern hemisphere ‘off-season’. This is designed to enable two-way tech transfer between both countries.

Most programs of this type end after a week and everyone heads home to ‘business as usual’. For the delegates in Salinas today, the signing of this agreement has changed all that. This is the start of an exciting new journey and a significant opportunity that Agritech New Zealand will share with the rest of the country’s agritech sector on our return to Aotearoa.

The Media Release in full:

SALINAS, CA, USA (30 September 2018) – Western Growers (WG) has formalized a new strategic partnership with Agritech New Zealand to strengthen, share and accelerate the development of agricultural technologies, as well as help businesses in both countries access U.S. and New Zealand agriculture markets.

“We are currently facing a myriad of issues that are severely impacting agriculture and the production of food globally,” said Hank Giclas, Western Growers’ senior vice president, strategic planning, science & technology. “Building a two-way bridge for agricultural technology will result in international collaboration where we can create, transfer and share knowledge and experiences about new technologies that can help solve the industry’s most pressing issues.”

The signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) establishes a business relationship focused on providing in-market support for agtech companies in New Zealand. It also opens doors for New Zealand agtech companies to enter the U.S. market via WG’s Center for Innovation & Technology (WGCIT) in Salinas, California, and for U.S.-based agtech startups to access the New Zealand market and opportunities.

“Connecting our agriculture innovation ecosystems will benefit innovators, growers, investors, regulators, researchers and public stakeholders not only in our two countries, but around the globe,” said Peter Wren-Hilton, executive director at Agritech New Zealand. “We are excited to embark on this new partnership to foster economic growth in the U.S. and New Zealand through international connections and missions.”

The WGCIT provides a co-working space that offers agtech start-up companies access to training and mentorship; monthly seminars; regularly scheduled events; and exclusive events with WG members – specialty crop farmers in Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico. As part of the MOU, the community that Agritech New Zealand serves will now have access to WGCIT offerings. Additionally, the WGCIT will work with Agritech New Zealand to evaluate opportunities to conduct R&D trials with potential New Zealand partners during the Northern Hemisphere off season.

About Western Growers:
Founded in 1926, Western Growers represents local and regional family farmers growing fresh produce in Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico. Our members and their workers provide over half the nation’s fresh fruits, vegetables and tree nuts, including nearly half of America’s fresh organic produce. In December 2015, WG opened an agtech incubator—the Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology—in Salinas, California to provide startups with the resources and mentoring needed to get their companies and technologies up and running. The Center now houses 47 startups. Connect with and learn more about Western Growers on our Twitter and Facebook.

About Agritech New Zealand:
Launched in 2018, Agritech New Zealand is a purpose driven, membership funded organization whose members share a passion for the opportunities that agritech can generate. Agritech New Zealand connects innovators, investors, regulators, researchers and interested public.  It promotes opportunities and challenges raised by agritech.  Agritech New Zealand advances the ecosystem through advocacy, collaboration, innovation, talent and economic growth through international connections and missions.  

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The delegation will join an internationally subscribed agritech immersion programme and visit large US growers and producers, connect with local trends, while scoping investment and export opportunities. Led by Callaghan Innovation and Agritech New Zealand, the group includes a diverse talent pool of early and late stage agritech businesses as well as researchers and innovation leaders.

The global agriculture industry has been slow in its uptake of technology, but this is changing as it looks to innovate and solve significant problems. These include rising labour shortages, environmental pressures, more adverse weather events, and feeding a global 10 billion population by 2050.

Callaghan Innovation’s Nicky Molloy says New Zealand has an incredible recipe to help solve these problems. “Our genuine relationships with farmers and growers, our kaitiakitanga (care for the environment), our natural innovation flair, and our strong national integrity measures are a unique value proposition,” says Nicky, an agritech innovation expert.

“Feedback from Silicon Valley tells us our agritech is world class, we are generally a step ahead. But we struggle with thinking globally and adapting to different markets soon enough. Programmes like this make a huge difference where innovators experience the very real and different conditions here out in the field, while connecting them with partnership and investment opportunities.”

The conference will feature a panel session about New Zealand’s unique ability to help feed the world, run by both Nicky and Agritech New Zealand’s CEO, Peter Wren-Hilton. Peter says the trip is expected to produce some significant international deals that will improve kiwi access to the US agritech ecosystem.

“This team is part of a growing body of global experts who are passionate about connecting, mentoring, and investing in agritech firms,” says Peter.

“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 our emerging agritech sector. These are exciting times for New Zealand. What happens over the next few months could well determine just where we sit in this global industry in the years ahead.”

Peter says the economic return of last year’s mission through increased cross-border trade is now being measured in the $US multi-millions. Alumni of the programme include kiwi firms like Robotics Plus and Autogrow who now have bases in Silicon Valley with significant international customers.

A list of the delegates, key mission info, updates and resources are available via this link.

About Callaghan Innovation 

Callaghan Innovation is New Zealand’s innovation agency. We activate innovation and help businesses grow faster through the power of science, technology and process transformation. Our staff of business innovation experts – including more than 200 of New Zealand’s leading scientists and engineers – connect people, opportunities and networks, providing technical solutions, business innovation programmes, incubator programmes, and R&D co-funding. 

About Agritech New Zealand 

Agritech New Zealand connects innovators, investors, regulators, researchers and interested public.  It promotes opportunities and challenges raised by agritech. Agritech New Zealand advances the ecosystem through advocacy, collaboration, innovation, talent and economic growth through international connections and missions.  

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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