Australian Agritech Association chair Andrew Coppin said Australia’s reputation would be at stake if the country could not keep up with the booming innovation industry.
“We punch above our weight in terms of production, export and quality, but we’re missing the agri-tech wave,” Mr Coppin said.
This ‘agri-tech wave’ refers to all productivity-improving technological innovations.
Examples include solar-powered water level monitoring bots, pasture-management software and drones being used to monitor crop health.
Mr Coppin said the adoption lag in Australia was not due to a lack of ideas, but a lack of cohesiveness.
“Instead of spending time focusing on brand new, super-early ideas, we should be scaling and expanding the many existing solutions,” he said.
The sector also needs to work with farmers better.
“Adopting new agri-tech solutions will only help farmers in the long term, but they can’t necessarily afford to be pioneering and testing new technologies on their own accord,” Mr Coppin said.
“Producers need to be encouraged to adopt new agri-tech solutions in a risk-reduced way, for example with incentives towards adoption and trials.”
Agri-tech is a multi-billion-dollar sector and a hot-ticket area of investment, but it is currently being dominated by the likes of New Zealand, Israel and Singapore — all small, wealthy nations able to quickly roll out ideas.
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