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the australian farmer
aim to provide coverage for the whole planet with satellites or other technologies to pro- vide real time high definition streaming video, and machine learning to interpret data, so you could even spot a bushfire starting or a torna- do starting to form.” TAF: Is there a fear of overloading on tech? Do you think farmers need more tech? Or do you think we have enough? PS: “I’ve been involved with agtech for thirty years now. I think the business need is still the same, but we just have better ways of solving the problems. It is three things that bother farmers. One is: ‘how can it solve my prob- lem?’, second is: ‘can I see a return on that in- vestment?’ and the third one is: ‘can I use this technology?’. It is important to look at tech- nologies that farmers can use in a very prac- tical way. Again, a lot of them will buy hi-tech machinery with hi-tech sensors and capabil- ities, but turn them off or never use them. I don’t think we’re lacking in technology, it’s more the interpretation of data presented to farmers in ways that can aid decision-making.
value crops mean you can invest more in tech- nology. For example, if you’re growing some- thing like lettuce – which has a two-week life cycle – you can innovate and fine-tune your machine models to a high degree. Likewise, if you’re growing in a shipping container or under controlled lighting, or you can control all aspects of the environment, you’d get a much faster return on that investment.” TAF: What other agtech innovations do you think are on the horizon? PS: “There’s a lot of interest in automation and robotics and where they can be used to deal with some of the more mundane activ- ities. Even processes such as weeding crops, you can potentially do that without the use of chemicals now, using robots. We do quite a lot with satellite and aerial image analysis, and Airbus is launching high-altitude drones that provide real time or near-real time images as well. It allows you to monitor things more closely, and get more meaningful insights. “There’s a project that Bill Gates has in- vested in with AirBus called EarthNow. They
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