Syngenta digital agronomist Lara Vallejo Roosdorp, Flux Robotics founder Jordy Kitschke, DataFarming co-founder Tim Neale and SwarmFarm’s WA portfolio manager Tom Holcombe take part in the SPAA panel at UniSQ on Wednesday.

THE Society of Precision Agriculture Australia was in Toowoomba this week for its first ever Ag Expo to be held in Queensland since the event’s inception in 2002.

The program included a series of indoor sessions held at the University of Southern Queensland on Wednesday, followed by a field trip to a cotton farm, the Tosari Crop Research Centre, and SwarmFarm Robotics’ manufacturing facility yesterday.

Wednesday’s sessions included presentations by university, departmental and private-sector researchers and principals, as well as a panel session looking at innovation in the precision ag space.

On the panel were representatives of two businesses founded in Qld, Tim Neale from DataFarming, and Tom Holcombe from SwarmFarm, as well as Jordy Kitschke, founder of South Australia’s Flux Robotics, and Syngenta digital agronomist Lara Vallejo Roosdorp.

Govt view concerning

Mr Neale has a long involvement with the Australian Agritech Association, or AusAgritech, and from his seat on the panel voiced his concern about government’s disconnected view of agriculture and technology.

He said AusAgritech has had no success in engaging with the Federal Department of Agriculture directly, even though innovation coming from AusAgritech members aims to boost the productivity of the agriculture sector alone.

“We end up in the Tech Council of Australia; that’s where I’m going on Monday,” Mr Neale said.

“It’s the Tech Council of Australia events that get us into Parliament House.

“The only way the government even hears about agtech is through the tech industry, not the ag industry.

“We’ve got some really serious questions to ask about how we are actually viewed in this country.”

Change in the wind

DataFarming and SwarmFarm were among the companies that exhibited at the first Australian pavilion at Agritechnica in Hanover last year.

When asked about the experience, Mr Neale said he found the scale of the global offering sobering compared with what was coming out of agriculture’s traditional manufacturing homelands of Europe and North America.

“One thing that shocked me about what’s going on Agritechnica-wise…is the rise of China and India.

“They’re coming seriously hard and fast and with a massive amount of technology at low cost.”

He likened what was about to happen to agriculture’s original equipment manufacturers to what the car industry has experienced with new entrants, saying John Deere and Case were going to “be like Ford and Holden”.

“I think it’s the beginning of the end of the big manufacturers.”

“That’s my two bob’s worth, my crystal ball, because they’re coming so far hard and fast in the big machinery as well, not just small stuff,” Mr Neale said of the new entrants’ offerings.

Mr Neale said the Agritechnica technology room was “basically full of either robots for horticulture or GPS guidance systems”.

Mr Neale believes that is partly because of the expense and complexity of traditional machinery, and the quandary of right to repair.

“To [SwarmFarm’s Andrew] Bate the other day, I said: You’re actually resetting the tractor market because the price is so extreme.”

Likewise, Mr Neale can see biologicals redefining the traditional chemistry market.

“Everyone’s searching for these biologicals to solve all the problems of the lack of chemistry.

“I think there’s going to be significant change in the near future.”

As Australian growers prepare to plant their winter crop with potentially limited fuel and fertiliser, and at inflated prices, as a function of conflict raging between Iran and US-Israeli forces, Mr Neale can see increased grower demand for different inputs, hardware and software.

“I look at the urea and diesel thing [and] I reckon we’re going to see huge uptake in different technologies as a result of those drivers.”

Capital needed for next steps

Mr Neale said companies like SwarmFarm, which was founded by Central Qld growers Andrew and Jocie Bate and has attracted overseas investment, show that Australia is “well and truly in front” on innovation, but is starving for capital.

“Europe’s under a huge amount of pressure to actually farm at all,” Mr Neale said.

“There’s regulatory pressures coming to Europe that we don’t see here.

“We’ve got a much…bigger freedom to operate but…we’ve got no capital.

“Compared to Europe or the US, we’re very capital poor.”

“If we can match the capital and the innovation, that’s great.

“We do everything on the smell of an oily rag here and innovation drives it because… we’ve got freedom to operate, plus we’ve got willing and innovative growers that need to change.”

Mr Neale said the Australian growers’ hunger for efficiency was helping to fuel innovation.

“The biggest changes come from growers in the more marginal areas.

“They’ve got to work harder and harder and harder [with] bigger and bigger debt, and they work harder to get that change.

Hardware solutions appearing

Mr Kitschke, who comes from a farming background in SA’s Mid North, kicked off Flux in 2021 to deliver a solar-powered robotic solution that can quietly chip away at tasks in the paddock.

In recent months, Flux has rolled out its first two robots, with No. 3 due in coming weeks.

Mr Kitschke said units were currently busy weeding lentil paddocks, and are effective down to a target around the size of a five-cent coin, or a plant at the cotyledon stage.

“It’s really designed as an ultra high-precision weed-control system,” Mr Kitschke said.

Flux Robotics founder Jordy Kitschke walks alongside a solar-powered unit in action in South Australia’s Mid North. Photo: Flux Robotics

Mr Holcolmbe has worked with SwarmFarm since 2018, and is its Western Australian portfolio manager.

SwarmFarm now has more than 250 machines in the field, 10 percent of them in WA, and its client base is leading the charge in terms of adopting disruptive hardware.

SwarmFarm units can be customised, and as camera technology gets more cost effective, they have come into their own for spot spraying.

“In the past, they probably wouldn’t have used it anywhere near as much, but now the automation is enabling that to happen,” Mr Holcombe said.

Simplicity essential

DataFarming uses satellite imagery to give growers and agronomists insights into what is happening to crops, fallow, and weeds.

Its maps help guide farm and paddock decisions, as well as variable-rate treatments.

Mr Neale said getting something simple into growers’ hands was the key to mass-market adoption.

“You’ve got to break down the barrier to entry, and you’ve got to make it valuable instantly.

“The easiest thing you can do is make stuff complicated…and we do it all the time in software.

“The hardest thing to do is keep stuff simple, and that’s the real battle that we all have.

“We think that the other big paradigm is that…more features equals more adoption.

“It’s actually directly opposite, so you’ve got to become almost featureless.”

Mr Kitschke said Flux has had farmers in its design loop “right from the start”, and sifting through opinions and suggestions, rather than adopting every one, was the only way to get to market.

“You don’t always want to just take everyone’s opinions and take the average of that and make that your design because you end up with some pretty…average stuff.”

“I learned very quickly it’s very hard to succeed as a hardware company doing anything custom because you’re really trying to make things that batch and scale manufacturing.”

“It’s so much easier if you can keep it the same.”

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