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You can learn more about the forum here: Food, Agriculture & Livelihoods Week | World Expo (virtualexpodubai.com)

In addition, please find below the registration links for the week’s highlights;

• Cultures in Conversation | Key Ingredients 26 Feb
• Dignified Storytelling | Beyond Food, Agriculture and Livelihoods 24 Feb
• Women’s Pavilion Programme | Arab Women Leading the Way in Food Security, Nutrition, and Agriculture 20 Feb
• Next Gen World Majlis | You are What You Eat: The Role of Food in Our Lives 21 Feb
• World Majlis | Farms of the Future: Feeding the Planet with Technology 17 Feb
• World Majlis | The Value of Food: Rethinking the Cycle of Food Waste 20 Feb
• World Majlis | Food for Thought: How will We Eat in the Future? 22 Feb
• SDG | Good Food for All (Flagship) 20 Feb
• Women’s Pavilion Programme | Women’s World Majlis: From Farmer to Boss Lady: Developing a Gender-equitable Agricultural Sector 21 Feb
• Expo Live Impact Series | Solving the Cash Flow Challenge for Smallhold Farmers 17 Feb
• Expo Live Impact Series | How Products Have a Story (and why People Should Know) 18 Feb
• Expo Live Impact Series | Bringing Farmers and Growers the Right Data 21 Feb
• Expo Live Impact Series | Simplifying Agricultural Supply Chains (and How Tech Can Help) 21 Feb
• Expo Live Impact Series | Pushing the Boundaries of Agriculture 22 Feb
• Expo Live Impact Series | Innovations Bringing an End to Food Waste 23 Feb
• Food, Agriculture & Livelihoods Business Forum 21 Feb
• Sustainability @ Expo | Nature’s Harvest: Growing Sustainably for a Growing World 19 Feb

Please note that everything mentioned here is in UAE time zone (-9 hours for NZT) so 8am in the UAE is 4pm here in New Zealand. Some of these events will be uploaded to Virtual Expo Dubai so you can watch later in your own time-zone.

Local agritec​h startup Cropsy Technologies has successfully completed its first capital raise, with the award-winning company raising $1.5 million in an over-subscribed round.  This will enable Cropsy to commercialise its world first AI-enabled crop vision system.

Cropsy combines mobile, continuous and GPS-tracked high-definition image capture, with AI-enabled software to analyse crops and aid decision making for growers.

The technology enables growers to identify pests and diseases early, for targeted spraying and reduced crop loss, as well as efficiently understanding crop growth and saving time for vineyard and orchard managers. It will boost sustainability goals for growers by ensuring resources are not applied when not needed.

Attached to a tractor and powered by the tractor battery, the system sees and understands every single plant while a grower runs their daily crop operations, profiling every leaf, fruit, shoot, cane, and trunk in real-time as the tractor passes by.

“There’s nothing better than seeing our system out there in the field, and creating tech that will be accessible to every grower,” says Cropsy’s Leila Deljkovic who met Ali Alomari, as engineering students at Auckland University. They were then joined by fellow co-founders Rory Buchanan and Winston Su.

Ali says it is humbling to be backed by New Zealand’s finest in AgTech, and their innovative, early-adopter customers who they couldn’t do their work without. 

“This capital injection enables us to reach our goal of looking after 10 million vines by the end of 2023,” says Ali.

Initially focussed on grapevines, Cropsy will expand into apples and oranges.

In August 2018, Agritech New Zealand signed a strategic partnership agreement with Western Growers, the largest producers of fresh produce in North America.

A key focus of the agreement was on the #1 challenge facing many US growers of specialty crops. Labor. The lack of and the cost of.

Several specialty crop sectors are under real pressure. Asparagus is one of them. A number of growers have already set up shop south of the border where growing conditions and the availability of labor are conducive to asparagus growing. Speaking to growers in California, it became quickly apparent that unless more automation could be introduced into the field, particularly harvesting, the industry in the US probably had no more than 3 years to survive. Labor issues were so serious that growing asparagus was becoming an uneconomic activity.

I was aware of the work of Professor Mike Duke and a team of researchers at the University of Waikato. They were working on developing a prototype asparagus harvester. A meeting with Mike in Hamilton and calls with Dennis Donohue at the Western Growers Technology and Innovation Center in Salinas, connected the two. Mike travelled to Salinas to meet affected growers and a few weeks later, the Waikato prototype harvester was being trialed on US asparagus grower properties. The University of Waikato’s commercialisation partner, Robotics Plus, supported the initiative. A major template for future engagement had been established.

The video below tells the story of this unique partnership. It demonstrates the significance of the strategic partnership agreement signed last year and provides an insight into how New Zealand agritech technology can help address global challenges. The good news is that not only can we build new channels to global markets, we can also deploy these technologies at home to help New Zealand growers scale their operations.

https://vimeo.com/360661164

We are grateful to New Zealand Trade & Enterprise for supporting the build of the story video.