Today we bring you our evokeAG. x Food Futurists collaboration series with Professor Andy Lowe, exploring solutions today that will help drive sustainable food systems tomorrow. Buckle up for Andy’s conversation with David Farquhar, a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Scottish agritech company, Intelligent Growth Solutions – a trailblazer of vertical farming, in a class of its own. Imagine a precision-controlled indoor environment where plants can thrive all year round without soil, with an energy ...
Jun 23, 2022•29 min•Season 2Ep. 54
Renowned as one of Australia’s most productive food bowls, the Goulburn Valley is abundantly rich in produce and teeming with innovation opportunities set to benefit a range of agrifood businesses. To continue driving the region’s productivity, the NorvicFoods project was launched, with the University of Melbourne and Sensand Technologies to work with the community to solve key issues facing agrifood businesses in the value chain and nurture the connection of university graduates to agriculture....
Jun 15, 2022•29 min•Season 2Ep. 53
This week we bring you another Humans of Agriculture x evokeAG. podcast, as part of our collaboration series with Oli Le Lievre. Here Oli speaks with Mike Lee, a global food futurist based in the US, about the possibilities of our future food system and what that may look like in five to 25 years – and how better connections between farmers and consumers is key to agricultural prosperity. As Co-Founder of Alpha Food Labs – a food innovation company that helps other companies create innovation st...
Jun 01, 2022•50 min•Season 2Ep. 52
This week we take a look at the National Farmers Federation Data code and how it is helping farmers and tech companies better navigate data governance. The NFF’s Data code was designed as a starting point for discussion between the farmer and the service provider about how data will be treated, in order to give producers legal assurances around how their data is going to be used, shared, stored and secured. Our evokeAG. contributor Oli Madgett explores this issue with Andrea Koch, the chair of t...
May 26, 2022•45 min•Season 2Ep. 51
This week, we take a look at how data is helping farmers make better decisions and improve their operations. Data capture and ensuring its protection and usability is key to maximising its value for farmers and agritech vendors. Data interoperability is one of the key challenges for the agricultural industry when transferring data between different systems and platforms. Building community consensus around agreed data specifications and standards will be key in harnessing the true value of data ...
May 12, 2022•40 min•Season 2Ep. 50
Today we launch our evokeAG. x Food Futurists collaboration series with Professor Andy Lowe, a highly acclaimed and innovative research leader at the University of Adelaide exploring solutions today that will help drive sustainable food systems tomorrow. Andy's first conversation with Sarah Nolet, Co-Founder and Managing partner of Tenacious Ventures explores the rise of digital agriculture, breaking down industrial era mindsets, and why 'becoming makers, not just takers of agritech' is so impor...
Apr 28, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 49
This week we learn about Western Australia’s famed marron crayfish and how it could become the next global food sensation. Aquatic AI , an aquaculture tech startup is leading this charge, with a fully-automated, vertical aquaculture system to ensure a consistent supply [at scale] of this tasty crustacean for premium export markets – in collaboration with the University of Western Australia. With the support of AgriFutures Australia’s Emerging Industries Program, Andrew Walker and Michael Storey,...
Apr 07, 2022•26 min•Season 2Ep. 48
This week we share our chat with James Madden, the Founder and CEO of Flinders + Co – the first meat company in the world to become completely carbon neutral back in December 2018. James isn’t afraid to share his failures – in fact, it’s what led to new business opportunities for the Australian carbon neutral meat supplier. Our evokeAG. Editor, Samantha Noon speaks with James about the demand for carbon-neutral products, consumers' purchasing behaviours and the path-to-market in the highly compe...
Mar 31, 2022•38 min•Season 2Ep. 47
We’re excited to launch our first-ever Humans of Agriculture x evokeAG. podcast collaboration series with Oli Le Lievre. Throughout this series, we’ll shine a light on the people – from all walks of life – who make our global agrifood system so vibrant. We hear their stories of innovation, their diverse backgrounds, what drives them, and why shaping the future of food is so rewarding. Join us for Oli's first deep-dive conversation with John Harvey, AgriFutures Australia’s Managing Director about...
Mar 10, 2022•41 min•Season 2Ep. 46
This week we speak to Justin Webb, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of AgriWebb, on how the farm management technology is supporting farmers to share their sustainability stories to global consumers – and earn premium prices for practices backed by verified data. Over the past seven years as AgriWebb has expanded they’ve seen 'remarkable adoption' from farmers and ranchers around the world. AgriWebb’s platform now boasts over 18 million head of livestock, across 150 million acres, worth $400 bi...
Mar 02, 2022•35 min•Season 2Ep. 45
This week we speak to Agronomeye, an Australian agritech startup, giving farmers a razor-sharp 3D view of their farm using ultra-high-resolution imagery to create a groundbreaking farm-scale ‘digital twin.’ Agronomeye's AgTwin platform came to life through a collaboration with innovation heavyweights, Microsoft and CSIRO. And it's helping optimise on-farm decision-making with advanced modelling capabilities and dynamic overlays that enable farmers to observe and understand the risks and opportun...
Feb 16, 2022•44 min•Season 2Ep. 44
From stone fruit to apples, Rubens Technologies is empowering fruit farmers to fetch the top dollar for their premium products, using AI prediction technology. Understanding and assessing fruit quality in a more timely, and far less intrusive way – is the solution Daniel Pelliccia, the CEO and Co-Founder of Rubens Technologies, has been testing vigorously and is ready to take to market. Combining a hand-held scanner with machine learning analytics, users can scan fruit pre- or post-harvest and o...
Jan 19, 2022•29 min•Season 2Ep. 44
This week we catch up with Mark Allison, the CEO of one of Australia’s largest agribusinesses, Elders . Mark spoke at evokeAG. in Melbourne, back in 2020 – a time before Australia and the world were plunged into lockdown due to COVID-19. At the time, Australia had suffered one of its worst droughts on record and bushfires had ravaged large parts of the community. Now as Australia starts to emerge from the pandemic to the ‘new normal’ and with the agricultural sector booming; Mark shares with us ...
Nov 18, 2021•25 min•Season 2Ep. 43
This week we speak with Naeem Zafar who made the Silicon Valley home 25 years ago and in that time, he’s founded seven companies and invested in, and advised on, more than 30. Until four years ago though, he’d had very little to do with agriculture, let alone attempting to produce tech to solve problems for the sector. An electrical engineer by trade, now Naeem is single-handedly disrupting the post-harvest agricultural industry through his machine learning and Internet of Things solution, TeleS...
Nov 03, 2021•27 min•Season 2Ep. 42
Matt Newell, a perennial cereals research officer with NSW Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI) sees a very big future for perennial wheats in Australia. With the support of AgriFutures Australia, the duo have established an early-stage cluster of researchers and industry end-users to guide development of this new crop to target the premium artisan grain market. Delivering improved sustainability, on-farm profitability, and nutritional outcomes – perennial wheats have everyone from mixed f...
Oct 27, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 41
Today we hear from the Queensland AI Hub about the endless opportunities that Artificial Intelligence offers the Australian tech industry and how we can make the most of it. AI is already creating exponential impact globally, and locally for our food and fibre supply chain, by alleviating workforce and labour shortages – a problem for Australian and global agriculture. Here our evokeAG. contributor Megan Woodward speaks with Queensland AI Hub's CEO, Sue Keay, about how AI and robotics can help t...
Oct 06, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 40
With more than 40 years in the venture capital game, Andy Ziolkowski – the Managing Director of US-based food and agriculture-focused venture capital firm, Cultivian Sandbox and Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Cultivian Ventures – knows a good investment when he sees one. With evokeAG. 2022 around the corner Andy reflects on the bounty of opportunities in food and agriculture coming out of Australia, the important connections he’s made on his past visits, like the 2020 evokeAG. Investor Dinne...
Sep 29, 2021•19 min•Season 2Ep. 39
This week we speak to renowned angel investors Rachael Neumann and Kylie Frazer who joined forces to launch Flying Fox Ventures . After meeting at an industry dinner three years ago, both agree it was professional love at first sight, and the rest, as they say, is history. Flying Fox is an early-stage venture capital firm looking to back early-stage startups to help growth and scale – and for more than a year now, the duo has seen no shortage of capital available or amazing opportunities to back...
Sep 16, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 38
Plastic is a remarkable material, but the planetary impact has never truly been costed. While its indestructible makeup has served a multitude of benefits, it has simultaneously eroded the health of our environment. An ambitious UK spinout, Xampla has developed a next-generation plant-based alternative to replace single-use plastics and microplastics. The best part is the plant-protein-based plastic is simply metabolised when it hits the ocean or soil, offering a much safer end-to-life story. Xa...
Sep 01, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 37
This week, we catch up and explore the collaboration between two agritech leaders; Phil Tickle, Co-Founder of Cibo Labs and David Smith, Co-Founder of Ceres Tag . The pair attended Beef Week 2021, where David officially launched Ceres Tag – the world’s first direct to satellite animal tracking and data platform. Since then, both companies have integrated their systems, to provide livestock farmers with valuable information on the health and location of animals, along with available pasture and f...
Aug 12, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 36
This week we take a close look at a fruitful partnership between farmer and agritech founder. Our regular evokeAG. contributor Judy Kennedy speaks with Dan Winson, Founder and CEO of Zetifi a wireless networking startup and Andrew Dumaresq, a broadacre cropping farmer, both based at Wagga Wagga, NSW. It’s a partnership that's evolved and provided a win-win situation for both Dan and Andrew. Dan has been able to test and trial his products on Andrew’s farm, learning along the way and Andrew has b...
Aug 04, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 35
This week, we speak to Emma Weston, CEO and Co-Founder of AgriDigital about blockchain technology, how it’s evolved and used across agricultural industries today, specifically grains, and how it’s empowering farmers to access value beyond the farm gate. AgriDigital’s recent integration of its farmer product, Waypath with Geora , a blockchain solutions-based company, is supporting this goal. The integration enables growers to generate a digital record of their grain inventory on the blockchain wh...
Aug 04, 2021•19 min•Season 2Ep. 34
This week we speak with George Peppou, the Co-Founder and CEO of Vow, a Sydney-based cultured proteins startup – cultivating a new food category. Vow is building a library of cells from a range of exotic animal species, both domesticated and undomesticated, to mix and match properties to explore what flavours, textures and nutritional profiles might best appeal to consumers. George openly discloses, he is a meat eater and enjoys a steak every once in a while. But Vow doesn't intend to copy the m...
Jul 29, 2021•30 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Two years ago, Batlow, NSW was devastated by one of Australia’s worst bushfire seasons on record. Our evokeAG. host and fellow farmer, Stephen Honner caught up with Ian Cathels, Manager of Ardrossan Orchards, at their Woodburn orchard, in the middle of their fruit picking season – to see firsthand their progress and how new technology is driving on-farm efficiencies. Stephen and Ian speak about the season, the challenges of adopting new technology, and the lessons about a new app Ian is using ca...
Jun 30, 2021•22 min•Season 2Ep. 32
As the Managing Partner of Omnivore – the largest and oldest player in the Indian agritech venture scene – Mark Kahn understands what it takes to really ‘make it’ after building a venture capital firm from the ground up that’s pioneered agritech investing in India. Omnivore boasts a portfolio of more than 25 agritech startups in an economy where agriculture and agribusiness account for a quarter of India’s GDP. There are around 130 million farmers in India – and while some challenges may differ ...
Jun 23, 2021•36 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Did you know $20 billion of food is wasted in Australia every year? Globally, that figure is closer to $1 trillion. But how can we improve supply-chain management if we don’t know what, or where the problems are? Australian agritech startup, Escavox has a solution. It's a little blue box tracker, described as CCTV for food, that’s placed in a fresh food carton at the point of packing and travels through the supply chain capturing data on dwell time, temperature and location. It uses real-time mo...
May 20, 2021•27 min•Season 2Ep. 30
This week, Oli Madgett, grape grower and Founder of Platfarm , talks with Sarah Nolet from AgThentic about the future forces impacting agriculture, taking a longer look at how climate volatility will not only usher in migration of people, but also shifts in growing regions and methods for production. While no one can predict the future, AgriFutures Australia, Agthentic Advisory, and the Institute for the Future have teamed up to release a report that explores what Australian food and fibre produ...
May 13, 2021•22 min•Season 2Ep. 29
This week we speak with Robert Waterworth, CEO of FLINTpro; a new venture that is leveraging a growing pool of innovative environmental data technologies to help its users rapidly calculate, track and forecast greenhouse gas emissions from changes across the global land sector. In a time where natural capital accounting is becoming hugely important in addressing the challenges of climate change, FLINTpro’s software simplifies data presentation and empowers policymakers, business leaders, and inv...
Apr 05, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 28
We follow Flurosat’s journey into the US with CEO and Founder Anastasia Volkova, a young and vibrant aeronautical engineer, 2019 evokeAG. speaker and all-around star for Australian agriculture. She talks us through their market approach and early learnings, requiring a swift expansion of crop varieties to meet US farmers’ needs – now capable of monitoring any type of crop grown on Earth. The Australian crop monitoring startup now covers 10 million hectares in 45 countries – a huge uplift from 15...
Mar 07, 2021•40 min•Season 2Ep. 27
Ceres Tag’s world-first direct to satellite smart ear tag will equip farmers with sophisticated data to better manage their livestock, reduce risk and confidently finance agriculture. With a head start on trials in the US, Canada and Switzerland, a global e-commerce launch around the corner and SVG Ventures’ THRIVE Australia Challenge 2020 award under their belt – the sky’s the limit for the Queensland-based startup. CEO & Co-Founder David Smith speaks with us about its potential, advice for...
Mar 05, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 26
