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Yesterday, I posted a piece that talked about New Zealand agritech’s role in assisting New Zealand farmers create their own emissions pricing and testing regime. This comes off the back of the government’s announcement last week that New Zealand will be the first nation in the world to fully fold agriculture into an emissions pricing scheme, with a comprehensive price on greenhouse gases introduced by 2025.

This is a major move and one that provides New Zealand’s agritech sector with the opportunity to take a global leadership role. As I said in yesterday’s post, consumers around the world are becoming more sensitive towards climate change and the size of agriculture’s carbon footprint. The New Zealand farming organisations & representatives who worked with government to facilitate last’ week’s announcement are fully aware of this. And so are New Zealand farmers on the ground.

This is not however just a New Zealand issue. It’s one that affects the whole world. By becoming the first nation in the world to fully fold agriculture into an emissions pricing scheme, this provides the country with a massive opportunity. Some of the first placeholders are already in place.

Working with Farm2050, Agritech New Zealand looks forward to facilitating a three-year nutrients initiative that will see disruptive nutrient technologies tested and benchmarked in New Zealand. By running field trials in different locations from Northland to the Waikato, Hawkes Bay to Taranaki and the Canterbury plains to Southland, we will be able to analyse the application and measurement of different nutrient-focused solutions that will not only provide insights into their impact on plant yield, but also their mitigation effect against negative environmental impact. By bringing international solutions to New Zealand, our own domestic agritech sector will be able to learn, compare and then compete.

As part of this process, the all of government agritech taskforce is working with Agritech New Zealand to recommend actions and initiatives that support these deliverables. Thinking big is driving a lot of this discussion and this means viewing major issues such as climate change and the carbon footprint from a global perspective. If we can address these challenges in New Zealand, then we have every opportunity to export that knowledge and technology to the rest of the world.

For New Zealand farmers and growers, this is great news. I’ve watched them get bagged from some sections of the media over the past year and for the vast majority of these hardworking folk, the criticism is largely unjustified. Over the past few months, I’ve also seen some of the personal toll that this has taken on farmers I know. My simple message is that you are not on your own and that there are a very large number of people in New Zealand’s agritech sector working on the technologies and innovations that can help address some of the key environmental challenges that we all face.

Perhaps a bit more personal than most of my posts, but it’s important to put things into perspective. New Zealand’s farmers and growers continue to be the backbone of much of our economy. I detect a real desire from both industry and government to tackle some of the key environmental challenges we face, together. Whilst much of the recent focus has been on regulation and the cost of implementing this, I believe it’s time to start looking at the amazing innovation and technology coming out of New Zealand’s agritech sector that will help industry reach this major milestone by 2025.

With the correct mindset in place, this will happen.

It is this fantastic opportunity should be driving the current discussion.

It will do this by accepting a proposal from leading farming organisations, including Dairy NZ and Beef & Lamb New Zealand, to give them the next five years to develop a farm-level pricing mechanism separate from New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Farmers will pay no additional levies or charges in the meantime. If this new scheme is not established however, agriculture will be folded into the ETS by default in 2025.

In short, the ball is now firmly in our farmers court.

Agritech New Zealand stands 100% behind the country’s farming community. The technology being developed by our members is designed to support increased productivity whilst maximising sustainable on-farm practice. This extends beyond the ETS and includes reducing the impact of poor nutrient application and management and its potential for run-off into our waterways.

Farming’s license to operate is real. Consumers around the world are becoming more sensitive towards climate change and the size of agriculture’s carbon footprint. The New Zealand farming organisations & representatives that have been working with government are fully aware of this. And so are New Zealand farmers on the ground. What they need over the next five year’s are solutions that will assist them address the challenge set out by the government last week. It’s an agenda that our members are keen to support.

As I write this post, the all of government agritech taskforce is considering a series of actions and initiatives designed to assist scale New Zealand’s agritech sector. It is a priority for the government’s Industry Transformation Plan (ITP) first announced back on 2 July in Parliament. The ITP programme is designed help New Zealand’s agritech sector develop the technologies necessary to assist farmers meet some of the major challenges they face.

Regulation goes so far. At the end of the day it will be the technology and innovation that New Zealand’s agriculture sector is known for that will enable our farmers meet the farm-level emissions pricing scheme that government and industry signed up for last week. Agriculture has, is, and will continue to be a major contributor to our national economy. Championing that cause and our hardworking farmers and growers is why we do this.

NZ government agencies (MBIE, MPI, NZTE, Callaghan Innovation, NZVIF & MFAT) have combined to develop an agritech strategy that supports the growth of the New Zealand agritech sector.

You can view information on the draft strategy here.

The wānanga will take place at Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga, 821 Orchard Road, Hastings on Monday 14 October from 10.30am – 12.30pm.

You can view the Eventbrite page at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-new-zealand-government-agritech-taskforce-strategy-workshop-tickets-72007286733

RSVP: wananga@haunuitech.com 

The central theme of the story is Powered by Place. All the materials will be housed on the website www.poweredbyplace.co.nz, which is linked to Agritech New Zealand’s main website. There is more to the work than just a video (although there is an excellent video as part of the toolkit!) – we also have case study material, facts and figures, speech notes, pitch decks and more.

We are looking to launch the story on morning TV this week, and will follow this with a media release, a story on the NZTE website, social-media campaign, and support from across NZ Inc through their many newsletters. As mentioned, it will also be launched internationally, with the NZ Delegation at the Irish Ploughing Competition (Europe’s largest agricultural show) featuring it as part of the NZ presence there.

This has been six months of exhaustive work. A project team included representatives from industry body Agritech New Zealand, the NZ Story group, from across the agritech ecosystem and government. The overall narrative and messages were informed by a series of industry workshops in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Palmerston North and Lincoln, involving around 300 representatives from across the sector.  

Consulting firm Deloitte also conducted offshore market insights research on current perceptions of New Zealand agritech by key industry stakeholders in priority markets – the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland. Their report is available as part of this toolkit.

We should be very proud of the work done by our teams have done, working in partnership with the Industry – this is an outstanding, innovative marketing campaign, and feedback from early previews are excellent. One industry veteran described it as brilliantly capturing the way he felt about the industry: ‘it brought a tear to my eye’.

Ngā mihi o te wiki o te reo Māori

On Thursday 13 June, Agritech New Zealand, with the support of National Fieldays, and the generous sponsorship of the Ministry of Primary Industries, are hosting Agritech Unleashed; a major one-day event at National Fieldays which will provide visibility and insights into some of the major initiatives being planned for New Zealand’s agritech sector.

These include:

• A preview of the New Zealand agritech story. This is a major project that Agritech New Zealand has been developing with New Zealand Trade & Enterprise over the past 6 months
• A preview of the establishment of a New Zealand agritech venture fund. For New Zealand’s early stage agritech sector looking to scale, this has often been cited as the missing link.
• The formal New Zealand launch of Farm2050’s Nutrient Initiative. This 3-year initiative is designed to identify nutrient-related technologies that will not only increase plant yield, but also mitigate against negative environmental impact such as run-off. A critically important opportunity for New Zealand to lead the world in sustainable farming
• The 2019 NZ Aerospace Challenge is also addressing one of the biggest issues facing the agricultural sector – sustainability. 20 companies are developing a product or service that detects, monitors or measures water or soil pollution using the very latest satellite and unmanned aircraft (UA) technology. Learn how NZ is leading the world in this space.
• The Government has launched an ‘all of government’ agritech taskforce. At this session, the taskforce lead will focus on the initiatives under discussion and how they are being designed to support and scale New Zealand’s agritech sector.

Five ground-breaking sessions designed to truly unleash the potential of New Zealand’s agritech sector. Like any set of new initiatives however, there is a significant back story to these.

The story began three years ago when it became apparent that whilst global investment into the agritech sector was accelerating very rapidly, very little was finding its way to New Zealand. Industry and government sat down together to understand the ‘why’ and the answer became quickly apparent. Whilst the core individual components necessary to build a dynamic agritech ecosystem were in place, fragmentation and silos within government & industry meant that huge commercial opportunity was being lost. New Zealand did not have a coherent & compelling story to share.

One year ago this month, Agritech New Zealand was established to help address this challenge. It was a case of industry, government, research & investor stakeholders coming together and working through the issues. Since then, we have signed global partnership agreements with major players including Farm2050 & Western Growers. Globally connected capital has begun to find its way into New Zealand to the likes of Robotics Plus, Biolumic, Halter and most recently, Invert Robotics.

Agritech Unleashed 2019 is the culmination of this three year’s work. As well as providing a platform for industry and government to announce some major new long-term initiatives for New Zealand’s agritech sector, it is also providing a unique opportunity to showcase some of our great companies and their technology to a global audience.

Delegates from over 40 countries will be attending National Fieldays this year. The Agritech Unleashed event is enabling New Zealand companies to reach out, connect and engage with this audience. Keynote speakers, including the Hon Damien O’Connor, Minister of Agriculture and Minister for Biosecurity, Food Safety, and Rural Communities, will talk about New Zealand’s competitive advantage in this space and how our agritech sector is today addressing key global challenges. These include developing more sustainable farming practices to improve food production whilst at the same time reducing negative environmental impact.

To support the event, Agritech New Zealand has published a landing page on our website that will be updated over the coming days with the names of our speakers, panellists and how to apply for tickets.

Agritech Unleashed marks the beginning of the next chapter of the sector’s exciting journey. We hope you can join 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.

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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