When agrifood experts, researchers, and farmers at the Digital Agrifood Summit talked about what’s ahead for Australia’s food and fibre sector, the desire for trust was a common thread.
Delegates heard trusted information can aid decision making when it comes to decarbonising current practices, that maintaining trust in sustainability claims is crucial for consumers, and that if people don’t trust technology like Artificial Intelligence, they won’t embrace it.
The Summit was hosted by Food Agility, Charles Sturt University and Charles Sturt AgriPark in Wagga Wagga from 29-30 October and the theme, ‘Future-Fit Farming’ explored the challenges ahead for our agrifood sector and the technology to help solve them.
The first session of the day featured CEO of Farmers for Climate Action Natalie Collard, who highlighted that climate change isn’t a future problem, it's already here.
“It’s impacting farmers now,” she said, citing a $30,000 per year cost from adverse weather events.
Natalie called for incentives for renewable energy along with policy to ensure community benefit sharing from developments.
“Transparency breeds trust,” said Mike Casey from Rewiring Aotearoa (pictured above), highlighting the importance of providing farmers with information in driving adoption.
He crunched the numbers for the DAS audience on some of the 21 electric machines in operation in his cherry orchard, showing that despite a high initial purchase price they have a lower lifetime cost than diesel.
He said that while Kiwi farmers don’t necessarily “align with being green, they love 'the green (money)'.”
A panel discussion looked at the opportunities and ‘wicked challenges’ in decarbonising agriculture, from mid-scale solar on a Riverina grain farm, to the need for carbon accounting, and finally to what the sector needs from government.
We often focus on the big problem and miss the low hanging fruit argued AgScent’s Daniela Carnovale – pointing to the opportunities to adopt livestock agtech to increase productivity, thereby reducing methane emissions.
That’s the question Ben van Delden (pictured above), partner at Deloitte’s AgriFood Transformation and Circularity, explored during his keynote address.
He used the example of Denmark’s bold sustainability goals; 70 per cent GHG emission reduction by 2030, and the introduction of a carbon tax on farming.
He also spoke about how big agrifood companies are looking to reduce the cost of carbon in their businesses and supply chains and how consumers are demanding ESG information on the label.
So what does that mean for Australia?
“If you export to Denmark, be ready for someone to put a label on the product saying what its carbon intensity is,” he said.
Ben said Australia needs to accelerate climate smart farming practice, provide support for farmers to do the heavy lifting, focus on data exchange support to build trust.
The verifying sustainability panel drilled down into how we tell the story of Australian agriculture.
In talking about Greenham’s sustainability initiatives Laura Grubb remarked, “80 per cent of producers are already implementing sustainable practices as part of day-to-day business, it’s just how to tweak that, document it and communicate it.”
Panel Moderator Piers Hogarth-Scott, partner at Deloitte co-leading the AgriFood Transformation & Circularity practice summed up the discussion.
“Developing frameworks for cohesive definitions, for example, whether that's definitions around regenerative agriculture or sustainability, and how that can be applied more broadly across commodities,” he said.
“There's also work being done around standards as well, so that we talk common language as we are trading between nations. There's also the question around who is best placed to tell the cohesive Australian story to the world - that's not resolved yet.”
Microsoft ANZ chief technology officer Sarah Carney began the session by outlining the opportunity for AI in agriculture.
"There is no other industry where so much is being asked of so few," she said. "How do we feed the world, ensure sustainability and optimise operations."
She also gave a live demonstration of how Generative AI can pull together knowledge from a variety of sources to support and assist decisions in a farm setting, along with explaining Microsoft's 'Project Florence' which translated conversations into light signals given to a tree, and vice versa, thus enabling communication about lack of water, pests and disease.
Viticulturalist and BioScout chief sales and revenue officer Charles Simons spoke of how the use of AI has reduced what used to be a two-to-three week wait for spore identification to getting information and data in just minutes.
It’s something he said is only getting faster and more accurate as more data is captured, "The worst we'll ever be at giving you data was yesterday.”
Then to the debate on how we should approach AI, is it time to 'let it rip' or are we better served in 'maintaining control'.
Featuring two academics, a farmer and technology developer, and digital transformation expert, the arguments presented by those debating didn’t necessarily reflect their own personal, professional or their organisation's views on AI, but were designed to get the audience thinking.
Here are some of our favourite moments:
Ganna Pogrebna: “As long as you are thinking about terminators, you are holding yourselves back" and “You can use a knife to cook a fantastic meal or you can use a knife to kill someone - that is a tool, just like AI is a tool.”
Jerome Leray: "A farmer is more than a farmer, they are an artist and a chronic gambler on the weather. Imagine if they could run scenarios in a few minutes to determine the best course of action to take. The cost of restricting and prohibiting is a financial burden to our producers that can save money and do more with less through the application of AI."
Robert Sparrow: "You can't have technology development without regulation and public trust." and "I am an enthusiast for AI and Robotics - but if there is one thing I have learnt studying this, it's precisely the power of these machines that we need to aware of.”
Vi Nguyen: "Letting it rip exposes us to bad products, dodgy data not designed for Australia and an influx of technologists riding the hype of AI - not understanding the long term commitment needed for agriculture" and “AI without regulation would be like playing soccer with five balls and no referee on the field."
Delegates in the audience were asked to complete a live poll on the day, pre-and-post debate, with the final results showing 56 per cent of attendees think we should 'maintain control' vs 44 per cent who felt we should 'let it rip'.
The final session at this year's Digital Agrifood Summit sought to transform Joyes Hall into the Farm office of the Future, transporting delegates from the year 2024 to 2030.
Five short presentations were delivered on the themes of 'Farm Safety' by SafeAg Systems' Katy Landt, 'Forecasting' by Agriwebb's Dr Kenny Sabir, 'Animal Welfare' by DataGene's Matt Shaffer, 'Data Aggregation' by Pairtree Intelligence's Hamish Munro, and 'Traceability' by CiboLabs' Lisa Barrios.
Each speaker interacted with 'Farmer Dave', played by Professor David Lamb, chief scientist of Food Agility's CRC, demonstrating how their technology can be used to revolutionise farming practices.
Environmental Scientist and Adventurer Dr Tim Jarvis AM delivered the keynote address to a captivated audience at the Gulbali Gala Dinner. Dr Jarvis spoke on the themes of leadership and courage, referring to his journey retracing the steps of Sir Ernest Shackleton. He impressed upon the delegates the urgent need to be united in our fight to reduce the impact of climate change.
Major sponsors of the Summit were the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Deloitte.
