Innovation takes centre stage at Fieldays 2025 awards event
Hosted by ginger dynamo Te Radar, the Fieldays Innovation Award Winners Event put the spotlight on the agricultural industry's most promising ideas.
Dunedin-based Techion offers digital diagnostic solutions to complex disease and environmental problems.
Its FECPAK product offers an on-farm and in-lab parasite management system that processes FEC tests for sheep, cattle, horses, goats and camelids, providing results within minutes.
Its original, portable digital microscope – the Micro- I 100 – takes photos of faecal samples and immediately sends the images via the internet to the FECPAK cloud platform for analysis by AI and/or trained technicians. The FEC results help farmers and their veterinary advisors understand which animals are at risk and which paddocks are parasite hot spots.
As farming is a 24/7 operation, Techion has announced the release of its groundbreaking Instant Faecal Egg Count (FEC) results, powered by a proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) software model.
That means no matter the day or time when a FEC test is processed and submitted using the FECPAK unit, the test result is emailed to users within a few minutes, with no delays for holidays and weekends. This positions the FECPAK platform as the fastest and most efficient FEC test solution on the global market.
The AI software was developed and trained using more than 120,000 FEC tests, analysed by technicians from samples submitted by FECPAK customers over recent years. Over the past three months, the FECPAK AI software has been validated on more than 22,000 samples, giving results with up to 96% accuracy, exceeding that of many human interpretations.
Technicians will continue to review tests over the coming few months to ensure the AI model is meeting performance standards and providing a reliable service.
Founder and managing director Greg Mirams says, “Instant FEC results will significantly enhance productivity by allowing timely, real-time decision making onfarm. Farmers can quickly determine whether to bring their stock into the yards for treatment, optimising their management practices, saving time and ensuring healthier livestock”.
Mirams explains that Instant Results for FEC testing is the first in a suite of new products that will be released this year. These include a new digital microscope - the Micro-1 300 - with enhanced imaging capability that will enable a new range of tests including cattle coccidia; sheep coccidia, cattle parasite speciation, sheep parasite speciation, facial eczema and pasture spore counts.
Visit www.fecpak.com
A brilliant result and great news for growers and regional economies. That's how horticulture sector leaders are describing the news that sector exports for the year ended June 30 will reach $8.4 billion - an increase of 19% on last year and is forecast to hit close to $10 billion in 2029.
Funding is proving crucial for predator control despite a broken model reliant on the goodwill of volunteers.
A major milestone on New Zealand's unique journey to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis could come before the end of this year.
We're working through it, and we'll get to it.
The debate around New Zealand's future in the Paris Agreement is heating up.
A technical lab manager for Apata, Phoebe Scherer, has won the Bay of Plenty 2025 Young Grower regional title.