New Zealand has a healthy cadre of innovators. A current example of developing, launching and bringing a concept to market can be seen by the global success of Halter, that currently has a valuation of $1 billion.
As with any new innovations, early adopters will welcome its arrival with open arms, but in general, farmers and growers are typically more conservative, playing a waiting game to see where the tech is headed and spending time to understand what it might do for them.
One of a panel of agriindustry leaders, farmer and chair of Waikato Regional Council, Pamela Storey, suggested that typical barriers to adoption included age and daily life competing for attention.
Vanessa Winning, director of On Farm Support at MPI, said that in many cases, up-take of tech was about relationships built on trust.
“In days gone by, trust might have been something centred around the local vet,” said Winning. “Now, it is more likely to have been developed from a transactional start, trust building with suppliers or service providers and then a move to trusted advisor. That trust typically deepens as the advice is backed by quantifiable credibility.”
Carpenter noted in her business that any tech being considered had to easily integrate with existing systems, had to interpret data well and deliver a useful solution to a problem. At the same time, she suggested there is a need to understand that return on investment might take some time.
In the Carpenters’ case, tech adoption had helped to save time, with better oversight of grazing and pasture management and the removal of one person from the milking shed, better work/life balance and better mating results.
Will Burrett, chief operating officer of Pāmu, said his business used tech to enhance existing systems such as Farm ID and Farmex reporting. Pāmu considered technology based on what the problem was and what the costs and benefits were. Burrett suggested that, in some cases, tech was too easy to adopt without any real benefit.
Further discussion time was given to the current buzzword – artificial intelligence (AI) – a term not widely used on-farm and a little confusing to dairy farmers who think it’s to do with artificial insemination. By contrast, AI is widely used and welcomed in the tech and business sectors.
On the practical front, AI could be used to address the pet peeve of many farmers burdened by the demand for data from multiple organisations: double entry of the same data. Further concern seems to be centred around the ownership of such data – the farmer or the data collector – the latter, often appearing to on-sell the data to other interested parties for a profit.
This topic has become particularly interesting as companies such as global player John Deere have become embroiled in data and intellectual property issues being fought through courts, with challenges around data access for the right to repair away from traditional dealerships.
Vanessa Winning, director of On Farm Support at MPI, said that building trust around tech takes time, and its impact is not to be underestimated when it comes to taking on innovative technologies.
“We are going to solve most of the issues that we have with the externalities that we have with farming in the next 10 years only if we can take on that adoption side. A major challenge is understanding that every farmer is different and the technology in question must be backed up with credibility and science.”
