Putting farmers at the centre of industry innovation

As the world’s population grows there is increasing pressure on the agriculture sector to produce safe, high quality food in production systems that are climate smart, transparent and sustainable. In recent years there has been an explosion in the number and complexity of new technologies available and an expectation that farmers will jump in to adopt them.

Despite the hype, the reality is that farmers often find the selection and integration of new technologies to be confusing and overwhelming. Similarly, technology developers do not always understand what the real problems are or how to communicate with producers, and advisors are struggling to keep up in this rapidly emerging field.

With this in mind, agrifood tech company Farmers2Founders (F2F) developed F2F TEKFARM®, an initiative that supports primary producers and advisors to engage collaboratively with Agtech providers and confidently adopt fit-for-purpose solutions in a de-risked manner.

To tackle the current and emerging industry challenges, F2F General Manager Dr Ben Baghurst believes farmers must be at the centre of innovation. Farmers2Founders purpose is to deliver innovative products and services to support Australian farmers to become more profitable and sustainable.

Involvement in F2F TEKFARM® linvolves exploring opportunities, deciding whether the initiative is potentially a good fit for the intended Agtech business, through to evaluating the Agtech solution against the specified selection criteria, and upskilling to build capabilities to interact effectively with primary producers, their advisors, and integrating the Agtech solutions into their businesses.
Further activities include introductions and site visits to participating primary producers to explore and establish business natures, structures, technology readiness, “pain points”, and development of an Agtech Adoption Plan.

Once the Agtech is deployed in collaboration and with support from F2F TEKFARM® Agtech adoption facilitators, there are also evaluations of the value and benefits delivered by the Agtech solution. Participants are provided the opportunity to share the learnings widely with interested producers and agricultural advisors, giving them the knowledge and confidence to adopt your Agtech solutions within their businesses and assist others to adopt Agtech.

To obtain the full Expression of Interest documents, please contact Tony Matchett, Tropical North Queensland Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub Program Lead - Agricultural Innovation & Commercialisation e: tony.matchett@jcu.edu.au