Innovative ideas and world-leading technology were shared at a Toowoomba conference last month cementing the region as an Agtech powerhouse.
Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise (TSBE) hosted the 400M Agrifood Innovation Forum, which brought together more than 200 of the region’s brightest innovators to help drive the adoption of Agtech.
TSBE’s forum highlighted how to turn innovative ideas into reality and showcased some of the best new technology available to solve industry challenges.
‘400M’ describes the 400 million hectares of farming land in Australia that needs to play its role in feeding the 400 million emerging middle-income earners in Asia.
Stephen Dummett, TSBE’s Agtech and Innovation manager said 400M – now in its sixth year – was one of Australia’s leading forums of its kind.
“The forum was a huge success and a wonderful opportunity to highlight the future of agriculture and food supply chains innovation here within Australia,” Mr Dummett said.
“It was great to showcase how industry adopts innovation and how they are working with new entrepreneurs to get the solutions to solve their biggest problems.
“This event gave our agribusiness sector a chance to come together to collaborate.”
Matthew Pryor, Tenacious Ventures co-founder and managing partner was one of the keynote speakers. He spoke about Future Forces: A ten year horizon for Australian agriculture.
Mr Pryor said all farmers should consider embracing new technology.
“Do not be afraid of new innovation as we are the ones who can pick it up and decide how we want to use it on our farm,” he said.
The issue of worker shortages was a big topic, which investors said could be solved by the adoption of Agtech such as autonomous vehicles and robots.
Other major topics discussed included supply chain challenges and foot and mouth disease.
Local grain farmer Clay Wolfenden-Fisher said technologies could make a big difference to the agriculture industry.
“The efficiencies and gains in production are up to 20 to 50 per cent of our bottom line,” he said.
“To be able to make those live decisions constantly, evolving with what is happening on the ground, is very handy as mother nature can be pretty tough sometimes.“
The event is in partnership with the Agtech and Logistics Hub.
Other sponsors were Queensland Farmer Today, ITrazo TraceTech, SQNNSWHub, AgriFutures Australia, NBN Australia, Meat & Livestock Australia and AgBot.
