Recent research released by 2018 Nuffield Scholar and Western Australian farmer Andrew Slade, with support from chemicals company CSBP and financial planning business Integro Private Wealth, recognised current ag-tech fails to deliver a clear return on investment for Australian producers.
Mr Slade travelled throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand researching the current state of the ag-tech landscape, to better understand the role it can play in the future of Australian agriculture.“Farm productivity growth in Australia has been stagnant from 2010 to 2016, with the most recent data actually showing a decline in productivity,” Mr Slade said.“While much of this can be attributed to challenging seasonal conditions, it does highlight concerns around the ability of current agricultural systems to manage climate variability — and it’s here that ag-tech has a real role to play.”
Citing a visit to a productive dairy farm in Oxford, England, the report illustrated how the lack of return on investment associated with the on-farm application of ag-tech was playing out.“The dairy farm is self-described as being ‘no-tech’,” he said.
“Struggling to see a compelling case to adopt currently available ag-tech solutions, the business decided to proceed without implementing various options.“Despite this, it is widely recognised as one of the most productive and profitable dairy businesses in the UK.“Examples like this make it clear the current offering of digital technology doesn’t yet provide the return on investment needed to stimulate widespread adoption, and only serves to address specific production-related issues rather than providing tangible business-wide productivity gains.”
The report said it was critical for the industry to move beyond data collection, to the generation of valuable insights.“Much of the farm management software available today amounts to little more than glorified notebooks, but we must take this enhanced data collection and convert it into real business insights or new products,” Mr Slade said.“The real value in the digitisation of agriculture lies in the opportunity to combine digital assets and capabilities to create new products and business models.“For example, growing consumer appetite for detailed food provenance stories, such as that produced in an ethical or environmentally friendly way, means technology-enhanced traceability can help attract a premium for producers.”
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