 I think most people have found a seat by now. I just want to welcome everyone here tonight to Lot 14 in Stone and Shorke. I'm Dougal McCombish, I'm a member of the SA Ag Tech advisory group, and I'll be your emcee. I drew the short straw, so you get stuck with me. I understand we've got about 28 or 30 people online as well, 45 people online. They will be asking some questions later on in the interactive session as well. So the other members of the group, Leanna Reid, are very esteemed chairperson. We've got Michelle Lully sitting down here in the front row, Andy Lau, we've got Mr Grant going somewhere or other, right at the back, Tom in the corner there, and Mr Wally, the well-known Mr Wally sitting next to Tom there as well. I'd like to acknowledge the Indigenous people, the land that we stand on, the Ghana people, and their historical and ongoing contribution to the agricultural sector. I'd also like to thank Olly, who's sitting down here in the front, so pulling together the Ag Tech meetup people. I'd like to thank Professor Caroline McMillan, who's the Chief, South Australia's Chief Scientist, and lastly from Stone and Shorke, Chris Kirk, who's going to say a few words about Stone and Shorke. Over to you, Chris. Good evening, everyone. I'm Chris Kirk. I'll stop by saying how awesome is it to have people physically face to face for an event. This is great. Put your hand up for me if this is the first face to face event you've come to in a little while, and put your hand up if you had absolutely crazy Zoom fatigue after the last few months. Yes, awesome. So that's apologies. That's just a bit of a snub for everyone that's online. We apologize. Welcome for those of you that might not have been to Stone and Shorke a lot before Stone and Shorke's a non-for-profit that started in 2015 with a really nice mission to help propel entrepreneurs that are solving some of the world's biggest problems. We've been working in Ag Tech now for about four and a half years, and we launched late last year with the Office of the Chief Entrepreneur in South Australia in this hub. There's about 160 entrepreneurs that work in this building, including Olly from Platform, Farm and Lindsay, who you'd know. And we're incredibly supportive of initiatives like tonight, seeing industry come together. It's super important. Please do stick around for some drinks afterwards. I'll be around. Happy to answer any questions about the startup hub. And yeah, over to you. I hope the event goes well. Thank you, Chris. So with any further draw, unfortunately, Minister Weston couldn't be here in person tonight, but he has prepared a video for us all to watch just explaining our role and the draft strategy that we put together. So I understand we're going to flip to that now. Welcome, everybody, to lot 14 this evening. This is a really important event tonight. And I'm sorry that I can't be with you. But this is about the launch of the strategic plan with Ag Tech here in South Australia. First of all, I want to thank Leanna Reid and her dedicated team for their passion and their forward thinking on how South Australia can be a part of the Ag Tech future, particularly in agriculture and on farm adoption. What we're seeing already is some of our Ag Tech has been put into play on farm, and that is just a great start to what is a really, really exciting future. So please be a part of this, be a part of the strategic plan. Tonight, it's about your input developing the strategy for the future. Thank you. Welcome, everybody, to lot 14 this evening. This is a. We get to hear him twice. All right, so now for the meeting part of the evening. So, Leanna Reid is going to come up and take you through the draft strategy that we put together over the last 12 months, I think we've been meeting. So we've been meeting every six to eight weeks and hopefully that's represented in the work that you see here tonight, Leanna. Thank you, Dougal. And welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for coming in today. And for those online, really appreciate your involvement. And thank you to the minister. He had none or a commitment that meant he could not be here, but his heart is definitely with us. Now, the minister established this, as Dougal said, almost a year ago, with a priority to develop a strategic plan to promote ag tech adoption in South Australia. And that was because it's generally a feeling that too few ag tech solutions have been widely adopted. So our strategy focus is primarily to promote ag tech adoption on farm, but of course, it's really a continual spectrum that we need to take into account pre the farm and post farm gate value chain. So we're not ignoring those sectors. Now, increased ag tech adoption could occur by all sorts of means. It could mean and it should involve our producers and I will call our primary producers producers for the sake of this abbreviation today, ag tech solutions from any sources, be they overseas or whatever. But we feel it's crucial not just to promote adoption of any technology, but also to grow a vibrant, innovative ag tech development industry in South Australia. So that is an alternative or an additional aim of ours. Sorry, I'm supposed to change the slide. So I'll do the multitasking. So as I mentioned, our purpose, a to increase ag tech adoption by South Australian producers and B to grow the ag tech development industry into a vibrant internationally focused industry well linked with the producers. So where are we now? Our first step was to conduct a survey of about over 600 respondents we had, which is tremendous. And they range right from the researchers to the developers of technology to advisors and the producers. We had a series of workshops as well, one on one meetings about this and also took into account a range of different reports in Australia and New Zealand about agriculture and where it should head and the role of technology. And our advanced ag symposium for those of you who came to that inaugural symposium was, I think, extremely successful and we got some good feedback from that. And the good news is I think that's going to be an annual symposium. So the end result of that is the draft strategy that I'm going to present today. It's pretty high level because, of course, we don't want to go into detailed development of initiatives until we've actually agreed what the overall focus of the strategy should be. So we're putting that to you today and we would like your feedback in terms of whether we're hitting the mark, what we're missing and recommendations from implementation would be great. What is ag tech? We do have a strong digital focus and I was speaking before to a couple of people who were saying, well, actually it's much broader than digital and I agree and we will take that into account. So whole engineering solutions, for example. But these are the kind of areas that we're focusing on to start with. Hopefully this ag tech group will roll its sleeves up in a lot of different areas going forward. And these are the major areas that we're focusing on in this plan. Senses to monitor assets and environmental conditions, software for farm management, precision agriculture and product traceability, typically as they are used with user-friendly mobile systems, imagery, software hardware to monitor agricultural assets and acquire important visual and multispectral data for insights into the farm operations. And that would involve, for example, aerial monitoring systems using drone or satellite technologies as a typical example. Smart farm equipment, most robotic technologies, of course, would come into this area that allow the producers to perform complex farming tasks more effectively and autonomously in many cases. And then genomics, we're not going into biotechnology per say, even though I'm in the biotechnology sector, but I was held down on that. We'll do that separately. For evaluation and improvement of the genetic value of plants and animals. Sorry, it doesn't like me much, Bec. So let's go into our results. First of all, about the feedback. As to why do we have too few ag tech solutions widely adopted, we had very consistent responses, which is great. So if you get a real diversity with no real common theme, it's harder. We had very common themes. And that applied across the survey and workshop participants across that whole range of from primary producers, advisors, technology providers and researchers. And they're also well aligned with the reports that we took into account for Australia and New Zealand. So in answering this question, the responses that we got back, we could group under these three headings that you have here. And I'll go through those for you. First of all, the value proposition is not always clear. I guess there's a view currently that farmers are mainly receivers of innovation. So it's coming at them from all angles and sources. A farmer not only has to deal with a whole lot of technologies, they have to figure out which ones are going to be cost effective for them. That can be a pretty overwhelming experience in a fast moving field. The current model is also flawed in that farmers, in some cases, are asked to buy the innovation, learn to implement it at their own risk and expense. So the issue for here with value proposition is that the return on investment or the benefits to the crew to it that might not be financial are not always clear to the producer. The technologies are not always fit for purpose. They don't address what the producer needs in the first place. And then even if they are, the capital outlays can be prohibitive and risky because they're actually having to take on these things very early. So I read something summarizing this as a statement that farmers can end up holding the risk bag for innovation. So the upshot of this is that ag tech development will be optimal when there's very early engagement with producers. Now, this is not something exclusively to the ag tech area. Being in the medical biotechnology area, it's a similar type of problem. You will receive subsequently a copy of our survey results and all the details, but that's basically in a nutshell what they gave us feedback on. So what we did in that was to say, how do we address these challenges and enablers? It's not negative. Some of those are positive. And we're going to present to you what strategies we think need to be put in place under these seven different pillars. And I'll go through each of those individually. Now, first of all, what I'm going to do here is present you a table. So this is a very high level way of doing this. But against those problems that we have, value proposition, even if you understand the value, do you understand how it can be useful on your farm? And even if you understand that, is it easy to deploy? They are basically the three problems that we've found. Now, the first pillar, as I mentioned, networking and collaboration. A strong message was that the positive influence of people that produces no and trust. So if you know that person that you're talking to who is advising you and you have trust in that person, you're going to get a lot more traction than someone comes in who's unknown, particularly if it's someone who's trying to sell you something, you'll probably say, yeah, well, you would say that, wouldn't you? So building networks and collaboration is probably the most important strategy that we have to implement. And that needs to involve all of the stakeholders, the researchers, tech developers, the advisors, producers, and so forth. Now, we have two areas under this. And what we're doing here in this little simplified version of it is saying, what does it address across those challenges? Of course, it's not specifically that they don't address all of them in some cases, but where are the major impacts? Well, networking and collaboration has impact across the whole gamut. Now, the two things that we're suggesting need to be considered. First of all, what we're calling ag tech hubs. And defining that, I don't just mean physical infrastructure. We've actually got a lot of very good physical infrastructure in this state. The Wake Institute, for example, the Wine Research Institute, even the North Terrace precinct here, what's happening at Lot 14, by way of example. The focus is on linking people. And it covers the gamut from educating, providing approaches to educating, upskilling in a fast moving field, the research that needs to go on, trialing of new technologies, demonstrating ones that have been proven to work, and commercializing existing and emerging ag tech innovations. And the important thing that we say with these hubs is they have to be end user focused. They have to say, what's a problem facing the end user, the farm, the producer? And how do we address that? That's a very different question from saying, I've got a widget that I want to commercialize. So at this stage, what we've developed is to say, what are our next steps in this process, as opposed to having the final solution on this, because that's going to take us a lot of work. In terms of the ag tech hubs, what we will do is to have a good look at what's here in South Australia, how it works together, and where it doesn't work together, so that we can analyze what the best approach forward is going to be. And there's always good examples elsewhere, be they interstate, be they overseas and so forth, that we should look at as a comparator. Then we can identify the gaps and how we need to address them. The second aspect about this was we're calling networking forums. And they're forums and showcasing events to connect the ag tech providers and the producers together. We already have some of those, as you know. Many of you involved in the ag tech meetups, for example. Our advanced ag symposium, I think, was a very successful event. So how do we build on those and maybe have other initiatives as well? And that forum will feed back to the other side of the fence, the ag tech hubs, and saying, you who guys, these are the issues you need to address. So it's integrated system, which works well together, focuses on the end needs and feeds back through to how we develop and apply new technologies. Bec, do you want to just do that one? OK, the second pillar was demonstration. And by this, we mean, how do you demonstrate to primary producers what works? And there's two aspects to that that we're suggesting. Trust intermediaries and ag tech ambassadors is the first one. By intermediaries, we mean someone who really is truly independent and trusted, who can give you advice. And it's not the person who's trying to sell you the widget in the first place, in which case you might say, I don't know about what you're saying. It's someone who you believe is giving you as a producer independent advice and hopefully is also promoting from the tech side of things technologies that really are powerful. And then ag tech ambassadors, the minister is very keen on this concept is other people like the producers who are nervous about taking up technologies. You've got people there, ambassadors who have said, well, look, no, I'm using it all the time. It works. No, it'll work for you and blah, blah, blah. That kind of advice, those two sources will be very powerful in giving the producers the confidence to go with what could be expensive options but great return on investment. So our next steps in this are to design and scope a program of this intermediaries that we've mentioned. That will take quite a bit of thinking to how does that work? There are some examples around. And also to identify farmers who are willing to put the hand up who are perhaps the, as we'd call them, early adopters who will showcase and help others see the benefits in their own hands. The second one of demonstration sites showcasing events and case studies relates to that and that's perhaps a bit less formal than what would be an AgTech hub. And it's events such as Advanced Ag, the AgTech Meetups, where people are coming together and particularly where they're coming together naturally. I think the advantage of the AgTech Meetups is that it's not orchestrated. It's not saying we will set up something where you can come together. It's people coming together because they want to. That's very, very powerful. And those will allow people to see the advantages. You can demonstrate that technologies work and so forth. And similarly, case studies where it works where if we get together a series of case studies that we could put to producers to say, look, this is why it works and how it works. So our next steps are to finalize plans for we have demonstration sites. Some are being developed, for example, at Lockston and Strawn. And how can we improve those, to make sure they're really optimized for what the needs are of the producer, both governments and private farms. What new ones do we need? And develop a series of case studies that we can use as exemplars and also build on our forums, such as the AgTech Meetups to help reinforce this. And of course, that feeds back to the AgTech hubs in terms of what's needed. Doesn't want to go. Okay, the third one is, goes back to the tech developers themselves. And can we build this thriving entrepreneurial AgTech industry in South Australia? We do not want to be what's traditional in Australia and rely on overseas technologies as being our only source of innovation. And we're calling this a technology accelerator that can mean all sorts of things to different people. But the bottom line is what we want to do is to try and fast track the development of that industry here, the AgTech developers, and link them with the adopters so that there's a very strong focus in any technology development on the actual use by the producer. Now, we have a number of innovation support initiatives. Jim Wally is here tonight and he's driving a number of those. And so what we will be looking to do is not to say that we need to reinvent the wheel, but to say our first question will be, do the existing initiatives, such as the future industries exchange for entrepreneurship that Jim has established, sufficiently focused on the AgTech? And do they have enough of an end user focus and can we improve that? And there are other initiatives of similar type. You know, if you're farmers to founders, think labs, South Start, you know, let's build on what we've got rather than reinvent something new. If we have to, we will, but let's see what we've got now. And also, what are the best practice models elsewhere overseas, for example? And there are a number of very interesting models that try to do exactly this. We are not alone in this problem. And we would, of course, though, that technology accelerator, whatever form it would take, would link in very, very importantly with the AgTech hubs because you've got to have that whole process in those hubs. Thanks, babe. The fourth pillar is skills and education. This is a very fast-moving field. It's not the kind of thing that you can say, well, I learned something about AgTech a while ago, as a producer, and now I know everything. It's going to change weekly, probably. So we have to make sure that our producers in particular, but also the advisors, other service providers, and indeed the associated industry, such as engineering, have the skills that are necessary to apply AgTech into farm operations. So in the business plans for our AgTech hubs and our demonstration sites, we'd build in this training capacity in the use of AgTech products, work for skill development because have we got the people for the future to actually apply these technologies. And also, all of these different peer linkages together is a learning environment in itself. And there may be other things like some of the formal vocational education training, and I did university. I did AgTech at Adelaide University as an undergraduate degree, as I think at least one of the persons in this audience has done, fantastic degree, highly underrated. It's still that way. Now, why is that the case? So we have to build up the importance of this type of university training. Thanks, Beth. Connectivity, regional network connections, which of course in remote farming areas are a real problem, and the answer is not going to be that we're going to get the major providers like Telstra to go and put a massive infrastructure into very poorly populated areas. But there are solutions to this, and it's crucial because if a lot of this stuff relies on having network connectivity, if you can put things on your mobile, well, what's the point if you haven't got network? So our steps would be, first of all, to identify available solutions, and there are some of those that are in place for whole of property communication. Our demonstration farms and case studies can highlight the approaches that producers can take. And we can engage broader than the AgTech sector. I was talking earlier about the possibility of where the engineering faculty sit in their universities and what they contribute into this. It's crucial to bring all these groups together. We have the smartsats, CRC, headquartered here. They have a very strong focus on solutions for agriculture in connectivity. So let's make sure that we help to promote them doing that. And where we don't have solutions, how do we facilitate network as the stakeholders getting together and actually solving some of those solutions? That's a role that, as a facilitator role, that government can play. Thanks, Bec. Compatibility. And this goes across device and data. Device compatibility. Farmers do not want to juggle 10 different things to come up with the answer. They want to say, give me one press of a button. I think we're all that way, aren't we? And what we do. So we have to solve this problem. And you've got one developer over here and one over here. How do you bring them together to have integrated solutions? Now, our AgTech intermediaries program can help with this and saying, look, actually, guys, there are solutions to this and here's how they work. And there are services available which help to do this so that we can put those out to the users. The second one is on data management, open source technology. And that is that if you're using a certain data management package and you decide to change that data management package, there's a fair chance you can't even translate your data across to that. So you've lost all of that history and important information. But there are existing open source software programs. So again, we could simply as first step be promoting what's available to do that before we have to go towards addressing new solutions. And then the third one relates to sharing data that helps to develop new technologies. It's too often things are done in silos and you think you have to reinvent the wheel and do it all yourself again when the answers are actually out there anyway. So kind of open source data is an important cross-industry type of opportunity. And there are some options for that. The US has a number of models that we can look at. Thanks, Peg. And finally, government leadership, absolutely crucial. And we've got two things here. One is that we are proposing that there should be some sort of commercialization adoption and commercialization funding system in place because people respond to carrots very well. They don't like sticks, they like carrots. And money usually is a carrot. So incentives to address agtech development and adoption that bring to, and we would say you can impose on that certain conditions that help you to address the problems. So you'd want it, for example, to be absolutely integrative of the developers and the adopters. And we need to focus on this when you think of the COVID-19 post-recovery. It's an opportunity that we can't ignore. So our first step would be to say, look, there are actually existing programs around that you can access for funding. And a lot of people don't know about them. For example, the Accelerating Commercialization Program. What is it around and how can we make sure people understand what's available to agtech developers, for example, that they can access? And then what do we need? What are the gaps, new initiatives? And then the other side of the coin is the messaging that government gives and its policies. So we already, as you saw from Tim's address there, the government is very committed to agriculture as one of the key industries that's going to underpin its growth targets economically. And it's important to keep giving this message because the industry will respond to that and say, okay, I'm confident government is gonna go this way. I'm gonna go that way. And the other aspect of various policy legislative reforms that can occur, an example of that, I think is virtual fencing where cows wear a collar and they go across a certain area and they get a little electric shock. So you don't actually have to have physical fences. You can change where those fences are. We can't do that in South Australia at the moment. It can in the state. And I believe the minister is moving to address that. He's also been moving quite heavily on the GM reform. So some of these changes are going to be important. So we as a group can identify where further change is needed. We could also apply things like the GovHack initiative where you get together, you can have government data and get people to come together and come out, think outside the square and come up with all sorts of new initiatives. So a range of different things that government can do. Thank you. So that's where our strategy is sitting and I'll finish on the next steps. And that is, we are going to make available both this webinar and the draft strategic plan, which will have quite a bit more detail. It'll have actually everything I've basically said and that will be available shortly online. We will also then seek your feedback on that. And when we get that feedback, we'll update the plan on the basis of that, put it to government as a final plan and release the plan as soon as we can. Certainly within this year, we want to do that. Then the group has to really roll its sleeves up and say, okay, these are the ones and what's the priority and how do we implement them and develop those detailed strategies. And again, that will be back in consultation with yourself as key industry participants. So thank you very much. Thank you, Leanna. Hopefully, everyone can see the work that has gone until it already, but there is obviously plenty more work to be done. So we're now going to have an interactive session. I really want to speak back there, Mark, that's all. So I'm going to invite a few members of the Ag Tech advisory group to come up and we also do have 95-odd people online. So Leanna, if we can invite you back and I'm going to read this from here because you're too accomplished for me to remember everything that you've done. So, no, I've lost the page now. That's all right. You're an Aggie, there you go. Michelle, if you'd like to come up. So Michelle is a primary producer based up in the Clare Valley. She coined the phrase stress-free handling in relation to animals, of course. Her background is as a chef and in technology and then 20 is motivated towards building her own micro-aperture on farm in 2014. So welcome, Michelle. And lastly, Tom who shouldn't need any introduction given the people here tonight. Tom's a highly experienced GM. He's currently with Muriota who are obviously based on site here and one of the leading tech companies of South Australia. So I opened up to the floor and anyone online if anyone has a question or I'm happy to kick off the question as well. Michael, you've always got a question about something. First of all, could you review? Thank you. Well done to the AgTech advisory, I said you or me. Well done to the AgTech advisory group for getting it that way. Probably the bit that I thought may need some further consultation is more up-value chain. So starting to look at the supply chain at logistics but also some of the emerging industries in the value add space. So things like alternative proteins and if they sort of fit the bill. Leanna, did you wanna take that one? Thank you, Michael. Yeah, you won't get any disagreement on there. We had quite a lot of discussion. I think Michelle was very active. In fact, I should probably get Michelle to answer that on the fact that, you know, where do you stop on that and the impact that they interact together. It's the needs of the food production systems, feedback to the farm and so forth. We, as I mentioned earlier, we had some comments about alternative industries and engineering and so forth. So yeah, I think it's a, we have to look at the bigger picture. I guess you have to sort of focus a little bit on saying, well, we're addressing this bit, but perhaps that's our next stage as well to expand past that. I'm just excited you said it. Thank you. The reason that I brought it up in our meetings was that I see that it really has to be focused on farmer profitability and efficiency. And that's what we have tech for at the end of the day. And that could not, that may come from externally, you know, not necessarily on farms. So for example, like an app that assists a farmer to sell his stock at the best price to the best person because that data is already being collected, so on and so forth. So, you know, thanks, Michael. We just totally backed up my point. And I'm really excited that you did say that because we did have a lot of conversation about it. And I do know the Minnes is very focused on on farm. So I'm sure we can take that back to human coach Hatch. Ben from Pritamita College at Basin-McClaren Vale. And the, I guess, innovation hubs has seen to be a very popular thing that's happening and being very fashionable in councils and all these sort of things, plus enough vent for a few of them. But I'm sort of understanding at the moment, they all tend to work a lot of them in isolation and whether there is actually a roadmap to actually get all of these together and for each of one of these to be able to specialise in particular areas. So the other hubs can rely on specialist areas to try and organise the networking and the flow of information much better than it is at the moment. Michelle, you've got some strong thoughts there, but Andy's here as well. You might want to give your two cents there. Yeah, I think it's a good point. And what you didn't see here presented is some of the next steps that are underlie each one of those key pillars. And part of that is identifying each of those industry specific hubs in particular and make sure we do get that cross industry pollination because ag is a big space and there's lots of industries within ag. So absolutely making sure that we identify them and get the cross pollination across industry so we can do exactly that. So I think your points were made. And we've got a lot of... Andy, do you want to quickly add to that? I think it's really important that for those kind of hubs, we focus on where the industry is strong and locate it within those areas but also consider the development versus the uptake. So it definitely needs to be a network for the state. And we've got an online question from Emma Leonard. Emma. Hi there, guys. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that last comment and I think there's also great opportunity to learn from how some of the other hubs and demonstration farms have been set up in other states. But my question was a thing that I think we are really missing in this whole agdec debate is that the farmer wants to stay in control of their data because things are moving so quickly if I put all my data into a product that then three years later is superseded, I lose all my historic data. People say, yes, you can get it out in CMV but because we're not working with common data standards yet, it's very, very hard. And I think this sort of idea, I'm going to use the word data lake but don't think of it from the external point of view, think of it of the farmer owning a data lake and then being able to push out and pull in from proprietary products all over the place. I think this is something I believe we need to think about carefully. What do others on the panel think about our management of how we're going to manage this community of data? Thank you, Michelle, you're the primary producer. You got some thoughts on that? Excellent. Love being a farmer right now. Look, I mean, every, thanks for your question and it is a big topic for all of us to think about across every industry and every conference that I've been at when there is a bunch of farmers in the room and they ask, you know, where's your data stored or do you own your data or do you care about your data or about four people in a thousand have put their hands up? Which always concerns me because obviously that there's many people that really do see the value in the data but also probably don't yet know. So I think this is a maturity thing in our industry and I think we have to probably lead this conversation and provide them with the understanding of why. I'd really like to hear what Tom says though because we really are the tech guy here. How does it work with Murio to make the data access? Well, to be clear, we're just a connectivity provider so we don't own or store the data per se. But yeah, I think it's a good point. Emma and I, we've talked about this before and it comes under one of the seven key pillars around compatibility where farmers really need to be able to access data from various sources and know that they've got access to their own data going forwards. I won't get into the concept of data ownership law in Australia because that's another whole thing all together. But I think for the purposes of this strategy we've absolutely identified that that is an issue and that's why it's been brought under that umbrella of one of the seven key pillars of compatibility because data ownership, data interoperability, system interoperability is such a key blocker to the adoption of the AgTech which is exactly what we're trying to achieve with this strategy. So it's a good question, Emma. Well, if we find the answer, we're going very well. So a question from Paul. Paul Levin. Paul? Thanks, Paul and I. I'm another graduate from the weight along with Leanna. But one thing I wanted to mention is to a degree, it seems like in the overall networking are we in danger of perhaps producing one community which is the AgTech mob and the other, and the other which is more the traditional land, land care type environment, perhaps more a low tech community with which probably it's very important to interact but it almost seems you could be two camps. And to a degree, I think that networking between those potential two camps is potentially going to be very important for societal buy-in to this going forward. Even to the point where I think we've got to be careful, even using the word AgTech, and I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that say AgTech, we know what it is and we don't want it. They don't know what it is, but I think there's an image thing there and there's some broader societal issues that probably have to be taken into account as well. You have a floor on that, Lena? Absolutely. I mean, I hope that came across as being fundamental to what we want to do, that you have to bring those groups together in very close association. I've spent a lot of my life in cooperative research centres and the ones that work well are ones which say, there's a problem on the ground that the users have. How do we address that problem? And you can't do it in isolation. So I often say researchers are probably used to working and in the lab away from the real world. I've invented a widget and I'm damn well going to find a use for this widget. That's not the solution that we're talking about. What we're saying is say what the problem is and who do you bring together to address that? And that's a whole group of things. And it's very, very powerful when you do it well. So yeah, I think, and that's why in particular, for example, even if we have a funding system to address gaps, you'd want to make sure it's end user focused so that you kind of encourage that new engagement between people because the agriculture sector is not alone in this. It's a biotechnology is exactly the same. It's something which we need to address. But when it's done well, it's damn good. Ollie, have we got another online question? Rob Bramley. So I just wanted to follow on from Emma's question really in terms of the focus on the farmer and in particular, as well as the data, thinking about the platform on which you acquire and store that. And several years ago when Peter Coonerman was the farmer of the year, he commented that a smartphone without coverage is not smart. And yet much of the discussion seems to be based on the premise that the mobile phone is the appropriate platform on which to operate this AgTech, collect and store data. And there's a big difference between a mobile phone that works at the farmhouse and one that doesn't work on the tractor. So I just wonder whether or not there's much thought been put on, put into the issue of whether or not the mobile phone is indeed the most appropriate platform for AgTech. Tom, did you want to talk to them? Yeah, it's a good point, Rob. And I think the issue that when we start talking about connectivity or internet connectivity in the agricultural sector is that internet connectivity or typical broadband cellular or internet connectivity, which is typified by its high cost, its high power consumption and large bandwidth, is separate to some of the ultra low cost, ultra low bandwidth, ultra low power consumption, wireless technologies. And they all have a place. So if you're going to be using your mobile phone, yes, it has to have connectivity. If it's NAP based platform or system that's going to be on your phone, then you're going to need that sort of broadband connectivity. But there are also in the field sensors that don't need to transmit or don't need that much connectivity. And there's a place for both of them. I think what the connectivity pillar in the strategy says that we need to identify all of those, the whole gamut of connectivity options that are available to farmers in South Australia and across Australia. Identify where there are gaps and then how can this body and how can the government assist in the industry, both the farmers and the telecom solution providers actually fill those gaps. But it's a really good point. I mean, if it's not a connected thing, then it's just a thing. So it's an issue that's highlighted time and time again, not just by this body, but by the NFF, by MLA, by others, that it's a major inhibitor to ag tech adoption across Australia. So a question from the floor. The young lady at the back. Hi, I'm Katie Land, Safe Ag Systems. Can I elaborate a little bit more on the adoption funding? You spoke a bit about the commercialisation, but maybe just a little bit more on the next steps for the adoption, as in farmer level. Given a fairly early stage for the discussions, do you want to cover that? Yeah, okay, can you be a little bit more specific? Would we have funding programs that would specifically target adoption? Yes. I hope so. We're yet to develop those concepts and what the costing would be, but I think, yes, adoption is a crucial part of it. So we're not just... I think there probably are actually a reasonable amount of funding available for ag tech development in existing funding bodies. You mentioned the farmers holding the risk bag. So it's obvious that the barriers that we need to get across here to take away those risks from the farmers. A big one of those is obviously the costs of implementation. So that'd be a great start. Yeah, and I guess the more we can have systems where they're proven to be that they'll work. So maybe it's not just necessarily funding, it's maybe it's a matter of weaving the way through how it works for you individuals or farmers. Jordan, if you tell me, I can let the floor know. At the adoption end of the spectrum, and what I find there is that, you know, I come up with good ideas of where I want the business to go and where technology wants to go, but the thing is that it's actually wonderful when another happens on a very regular base when people come in and actually have a look at your business and think, well, how about this area? So there's a lot of these sort of areas that people in business don't realise that are in front of them. When someone comes in with a tech sort of base, can actually start pointing out some of these ideas so that that targets the end user. A lot of the time the end user, what is the end user? The end user sometimes doesn't really know what they want. So just a comment on that area. I think that's picked up in the demonstration pillar. I think that came through really strongly in the survey. The survey results that we got is that the farmers are quite willing to adopt the technology or the solutions if they know where they are and where they can find them and how they can implement them. So, yeah, I think your point's well made and that's why it's one of the key pillars of the strategy is to start solving that problem. Oli? Darren? Darren O'Mecky. O'Mecky. Far away, Darren. Darren O'Mecky. On the, one of the partners in Holder Consulting and Chair of the Foment Wine and Tourism Tech Accelerator, I just want to make a comment that, you know, last year within Foment, four of the companies that we graduated would meet your definition of being ag tech. And I think there's a number of other tech organisations and outfits in South Australia who have, within their verticals, a number of ag tech companies. So I just want to make sure or query how you're including all of those organisations who are having an impact on ag tech when you're looking at your scan of entrepreneurial capability development. Michelle, did you want to give your thoughts on that? Not really, because I'm quite new to the ag tech team. I was actually hoping you were going to ask Leanna that question, to be honest. So can I pass to you, Leanna, please? So the question, I'm sorry, Darren. I've had it a bit hard to hear it. So asking you to say there's a whole lot of other technologies. How do you integrate them? I'm really, I'm really just wanting to understand when you look at that ag tech entrepreneurial capability or when you do the scan or did the scan, I'm not sure whether you did or are doing. You know, the capability for developing entrepreneurial capability in ag tech is not necessarily being developed just in organisations that are focused on pure ag tech plays. I'm wondering how you're including that in your capability mapping. Yeah, I agree fully, Darren. I think that's sort of that cross fertilisation is crucial because you can often think, perhaps goes back to a previous question, we've tried this here, here and there. And we don't think outside of the square enough in doing that to say, gee, you know, this company over here is working on this area, but they could, you know, perhaps their value proposition is something in ag tech. So I guess that's something we would hope that the, by setting up dynamic ag tech hubs that are really people focused and not silos helps to start addressing that. And some of it, I guess some of the ag tech meetups, I hope, I don't know, I don't know whether or not you get a lot of people from outside the ag tech area coming along. And I think that's the crucial part of it and that cross fertilisation is key. Yeah, that's actually what we love when we see people coming over for defence or mining and, like, lots of problems in farming have been solved in other industries and we just need to do a better job of pulling them across and helping to share our problems. But yeah, and again, we've got Darren doing, you know, crossing over within, like, tourism tariff. Yeah, there's, yeah, looking really more at these. Thanks, Holly. Is there a question from the people here on the ground? We'll question down there. Yeah, sure. Hi, Anna Faulkner from Auss Agribusiness. Just wanted to ask, commercialisation, funding, what does that encapsulate? Is that MVP? Is that prototype product development or is that a marketing plan and end user testing? You're saying there's a lot available. I just would like to understand further what that actually involves. Well, there's probably, there's never enough available for the answers to that question. I mean, some of them, for example, Accelerating commercialisation has a principle that you should have proven something works. So you've done the research and development, but there are gaps in taking that to the market. Be they prototyping or the customer says, well, I need to see you using this here and here before I take it on, or whole gambas. Get rid of this one. Yeah. Hear me okay? The biotech sector, for example, that program even goes down to pre-clinical research and development. And I keep saying, you know, hang on, hang on, that's not proven yet. But they'll say, well, if there's a, if Merck or whatever are prepared to have a licence agreement with you the moment you show this, then it is. So there's those sort of programs. I guess what we partly want to do is to be able to put back to you when you ask that question and say, well, look, these are the programs that are available. And this is how they work, because I think the trouble is a lot of people don't know the ins and outs of what makes a successful application for these programs. So that's a gap and it's something that kind of thing that intermediaries can do. Actually, an accelerating commercialization, I think the commercialization advisers that the system that it established just have advisers, and Angel, for example, is one of those who work with the applicant and say, this is what this program needs. And this is how you can tweak it. And by the way, have you spoken to that company there, because they've got some interesting stuff to work with? There's that sort of program. Well, I think, particularly, are where are the gaps that are not being addressed and then we would put to the government and say, here's an opportunity, guys, that if you don't actually support and get over this hurdle, nothing's going to happen. And what are they? And that's, I think, one of the things and we'd be seeking feedback on as to what the problems are. Yeah, I think to Liam's last point there, that's what we're saying to the government. I think there needs to be some funding, potentially some funding for AgTech, but what does that need to look like? And that's what we're seeking the feedback on this second phase from the likes of yourself. There's plenty of, you know, although research is, of course, you know, it's a struggle and who wants to be in something with a 10% success rate, but there is, in the scheme of things, a lot of money available for research for competitive applications. When you start getting to that stage of, I've got this now, it's gone past that stage, how do I fund it? There's a question up in the back. Hello, thanks for the presentation. Susie Robinson from the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility. So I'm very much at the pointy research end of the spectrum. But I guess I'm going to ask a much broader question and it was sort of alluded to before around kind of keeping Ag at the forefront of everyone's minds as a, you know, a sexy, exciting, interesting sector that matters. I kind of, my frustrations when they arise are about sort of seeing SA and AG in SA kind of written off as one of the traditional dinosaur industries. And I note there's so much interesting technology and technology solutions that get derived across from places originally intended for defence, engineering and elsewhere that actually have a very happy landing in AG. I guess I'm interested in the thoughts of the advisory group and the way in which the strategy and the activities within it will help try and generate both some more passion and interest around the importance of AG and AG tech for SA and secondly about ways in which you might pull across some great tech and research solutions from other domains into the AG domain. Thanks. I've got a few responses. I'm sure you're doing your first. The mic. Do you have a turn it on? First time in my life that I need a microphone, but I think the, I think the, you know, we obviously have these fantastic demonstration hubs. I think that is going to provide the state an opportunity to see, feel, touch, look at and be more involved in the technology that's there and it's not just going to be for farmers but for the relevant industry around. So I think that's part one. And we're also very focused in our group to be thinking about the culture that we are trying to build in this state around AG tech and commercialization and entrepreneurial pursuits. So from, I guess, from a farmer's perspective sounds pretty exciting. Finally, agriculture has become sexy which I'm not sure it ever will be but we can try. And I think, you know, it is a hot topic and if we are able to market that correctly with the right communication and involve the right people within our state I don't think we can go wrong because it is a forward, you know, it's obviously something that's really important and we're one of the biggest producers of grain and livestock in the country. So, you know, we stand in a very strong position from that point of view. I think from when we've been referencing how we do that because it's come up a few times when we've been discussing this, how do we make this vibrant AG tech industry, agriculture in general. We often reference what's happened in this state over the last 12 to 24 months in the space sector in that there are now serious jobs and a serious ecosystem of startups and entrepreneurs right from research through to the end users of space right here within a few hundred meters of this building because we said there's strong government leadership at the federal and state level and we've actually created this now. We are now well known globally as in the Southern Hemisphere as a space hub. Anyone that's, well, when you used to be able to jump on a plane, anyone that was coming from overseas would come to Adelaide to deal with things in the space sector and there's no reason why we can't do the same for AG and AG tech in South Australia. There's a lot of things in our favor. We have most of the major agricultural sectors on our doorstep and we're quite good at a lot of them. It's pretty safe here. Don't underestimate how attractive doing business in South Australia is in the current COVID environment and all we need to do is actually make sure we're all pulling in the same direction, have a clearly articulated and simple strategic plan to get these things happen, which I think crosses across a lot of the seven of the key pillars that are here and let's make it happen. We've got techs a lot sexy or agriculture a lot sexy now that it was, I think, 15 or 20 years ago. But it's now, that's the whole point of this plan is to do exactly what you just talked about. We've got a question online from Matthew Knuckle. Yeah, good evening, everyone. I'm the chairman of Up and All Farming Systems and I'm just curious to know what role will the farming systems group have in this? You're talking about these hub technology hubs. Do you think of establishing extra groups on top of it or is there going to be a reliance on these existing groups to take on these roles and be at the grassroots, the ground level, so to speak? I'm sure you've already said you want that one. Yeah, I like it when I get to talk to farmers. What do you want to do? I mean, I would be really interested to hear what the groups feel that they would like to do just very quickly. Is it something that you would like to take on? Yeah, absolutely. We've literally just started up a technology hub group here in the Upper North and it's literally in the infant stages and the conversation tonight is being exactly what the aim and the goals are of what we're trying to do up here in the Upper North. I think the capabilities of farming systems groups are crazy. We are farmers and we as farmers are our members and we have those connections to the grassroots for extension and trial work. I thought you're mad if you don't include us as a big part of your strategic plan. We talked about this at length at our last meeting and we identified that all of our producer groups that were out there that were on the ground would be the perfect people to involve and to start to create that culture and the messaging and to trial some of these different texts that we have available. I'm really thrilled to hear that that's the same thinking that I thought you guys would have and I think the conversations that we've all had in our meetings are exactly in that direction so there's a lot of things that we can introduce you to and we would love to see some of these groups even have possibly one of the hubs or one of the demonstration farms around the state. We currently have them or one in Lockston and Strawn, Kaiba Balati, hope I said that right. And we'd love to, as a mid-north girl I'd love to see some more demo farms and mid-north, upper north and near Peninsula. That would be fantastic. Back to Michael. I think one of the things to really drive the adoption will be driving the quality of the actual technologies that are developed and part of that is going to be growing what we've got here tonight in this ecosystem. One of the things that has been a good thing from COVID is that we've got had almost 100 people online before and I think that's a result of Ollie and the people in like Sarah and Ollett and the people from Spradex continuing this and getting these things online. So I'd say that probably out of those 100 people we've probably had half of them from interstate. A big part will be, I think, the Office of the Chief Entrepreneur, Department of Trade and Investment starting to see how we can attract ag tech companies from interstate to come to South Australia even from overseas as well. Last night I was on the phone with a company from Israel. They're looking at the Australian market and how do we make it attractive for them to come to South Australia to set up offices here to send people here and how do we start to introduce our real early adopters and leaders from an agribusiness perspective to some of those innovations in the state and overseas and say to them if we were to, from a government perspective or from an industry perspective invest to bring this company to South Australia from interstate or overseas what could you bring to the table as either an industry group or a corporate agribusiness? Because I think, you know, rising tide lifts all ships. I thought that probably would pay back into some comments you were making before about the space. I think you're dead right, Mark. About making sure that the technology is right. I'll probably take that one step further. Most of the technology that's adopted is because the entire solution is right. Often the technology is there. It's the actual, it's the final bit. It's the implementation or the commissioning or the support that you get or something else that actually is the major blocker to the adoption. So setting up an ecosystem, it's a word that's used a lot, but an ecosystem of people right from the R&D through to the early commercialization through to the early adopter producers so that these international and national ag tech companies say, look, if we're going to get something off the ground, go to South Australia because you can get it done there. And if you can get it done there, you can get it done anywhere, is what we want to achieve. And that means it's a reason why those seven pillars exist because we know if we start addressing some of those issues and we can bring the clever tech and the clever R&D and the clever ideas and integrate them with the early adopter farmers who will then be sharing their ideas where their neighbours over the offence to drive the ag tech adoption, hopefully increasing productivity and at the end of the day driving the economic benefit that we need out of agriculture in this state and over the nation for the next few years. Keep the theme of second round questions. We've got Emma back online. Oh, Yuri. Okay. Okay. I'm representing a Flinders University, which is different from University of Adelaide and the Saudi from White Campus. However, in our university also have research which made sure we've lost point of lean genomics. And therefore, plan by technology and genomics, this is our interest. And we have a collaboration between local breeders, particular Longreach breeding company and international companies from Kazakhstan and South Africa. And they're happy to invest some money for agricultural research. My question is, is it helpful? Is it much of the ag tech in your interest for research and for future of the South Australian farmers? Viana, did you want to talk about the research sort of things? So the questions really and how about the research? In fact, we already have a collaboration. So the question is, is it helpful or not for your ag tech research? I can answer. I know she's going to say. She's going to say yes. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, we want to bring, really build South Australia up across the board there, but South Australia can't operate in isolation and has to be internationally focused. And I'm hoping that what we do is really build the outputs of our industries, be they the end producers or the sale of value-added agricultural products or the technologies to help develop those, because we desperately need to get away from being a commodities-based industry which is across the board in Australia. I have a rather unfriendly slide which has a picture of Australia with bulldozers in it and digging it up and putting an owl onto ships. So we're digging up Australia and we're just giving it to the rest of the world. We've got to value that much more. And this is a key area. And I guess it goes back to that question of, can we make agriculture sexy? The science seemed to me to be good in that regard. Those of you who went to evoke ag, it's pretty exciting. And our advanced ag conference here, I think great enthusiasm. So to me, it's really coming of age and it's time we captured this. So I hope the strategy is its time and places is going to be right. Sorry, back to Emma online. Sorry about that, guys. Yes, going back to the ecosystem issue, is the group looking to actually produce some ecosystem maps for enterprise-specific even for agriculture so that we can really see where the gaps and where the linkages need to be so that we can actually, A, work together with what we've already got but also encourage investors in these areas because what I'm noticing and some of this stuff I'm doing in my PhD, I'm going, God, this is just so stupid. I should have seen it years ago. But I asked all the farmers to give me their processes that they wanted digitizing and the interconnectivity continues to be the big problem. We're not just doing, you know, collecting weather data in isolation is nice, but it's actually pretty worthless to us until it gets built into actually being able to understand soil moisture and then build that into yield predictions and things like that. So if we could build those ecosystems for even at an enterprise basis, I think there would be some really interesting maps to help investors. Is that something you're thinking about? Yeah, so what you can't see on the screen is the more detailed, or draft strategic plan and I'll just read the next steps. Pillar number one is mapping and showcasing existing SA AgTech ecosystem and then identifying additional suitable models around Australia. So, Emma, exactly right. Yep, exactly what you've talked about is something that's in the crosshairs of this group and the strategy because we can see that often we don't want to replicate what's already out there but then it's no use having these bodies out there if farmers don't know about them and can't utilise them. But I guess I'm encouraging us to go even that next level deeper rather than the sort of the general ecosystem really looking at it at an enterprise, at an operational level there, Tom. So, be happy to talk to you further about that at some stage if you're interested. Emma, I'd like to get your input to that and I think that's very important because sometimes you produce these maps and they're just bureaucratic sort of exercises and they're out of date very quickly and that's useless. What we want to do is to produce, let's call them maps that actually really add value and create that connectivity. And I go back to actually in that regard and thinking about when the space industry was starting going in. Many of you will know Nicholas Sassinelli who's now with the space at CRC. He was with the Premier and Cabinet at that point and he decided to, I guess, map what was going on in space technologies both in research and companies which he did and he produced sort of a map that way and various capabilities and so forth. What it actually did though, I think, was stimulate the whole groups getting together and so that the forums that he has... She's not listening to you, Leanne. Yeah, they started with 70 people and now have 700 people together so it stimulated that I'm going to give up there. Do we have a final question on the floor here in Adelaide? We'll do two final questions. How's that? Thank you for the opportunity. I'm Larry Liu from FlatX. What we are doing is we provide the ACTRONS spray and the seeding service and also we distribute ACTRONS in South Australia. What I want to know a little bit more is about how the government can support the demonstration and also commercialization of the technology and we just set up early this year which is probably not a good time to start a new business. Another thing is we have some trial flight at the Barasa Valley area but our pilot told us it's pretty hard to get the RTK signals so while we check the map in South Australia the RTK towers is much less compared with the Victoria and the New South Wales so we need that signals to get accurate precision to fly the drones so I think probably other technologies need a signal as well so I don't know if the government has some solution for the facilities in the future. That's a good question that's come up from a couple of people from the drone space so that continuous operating reference stations that we don't have many of them in South Australia I think that's actually something that hasn't actually come up really on our radar to be honest but it is a very good point and it's something that other states have really invested in but there is loads of stuff like the really highly accurate GPS satellite system that Australia's sort of in the final stages SPAS have also rolling out and that's got the potential to really take things leaps and bounds forward so that's definitely got to be something to note from that connectivity side yeah GPS connectivity's got to be something the machine is designed to the centimetre level accuracy but you know we need the RTK but if you don't have that it's pretty hard to have the ACT-TAC thank you maybe the last question good day everyone, Alice from Sendtech just curious and excited about your ACT-TAC ambassadors and hubs and hopefully they are local farming groups in some way sort of reminds me of the old extension officer model which worked pretty well but what worked well for them was that they were pretty agnostic about brands and companies that they supported so for example they could recommend no-till farming without really getting specific about a certain type of herbicide so I'll just be curious about what sort of framework and protection you put in for these groups so that they're not bombarded with a tonne of commercial pushes and can still do the trial work and really recommend the technology behind the brands it's quite a big question but yeah we obviously are going to have the network of the different farming groups we're going to have the, where's the, can I borrow your copy of the the demonstration sites, the hubs, using the different sustainability sorry the soils and farming groups and also in that second pillar of using the ambassadors so my take on what we've been working on is absolutely exactly what you're talking about and we still have a lot of work to do around the detail of how we're going to deliver this out and we are still asking feedback so questions like yours and hopefully you might send us through an email and give us more feedback on what you'd like to see because I think sometimes we don't always get that detail when we're asking a survey of what we'd like to see and what you'd like to see as well and I think as much as the demonstration sites are going to be great but also being able to collaborate and create some of those newer partnerships across the entire ecosystem will also help that I hope that answers your question but please send us an email you know yeah we've got a lot of work to still do and that's why we're here today but it has been noted that we don't see the role of this body to pick winners and to pick the technologies that are going to win or the companies that are going to win in fact we've been quite deliberate to make sure the language in the strategy precludes that we're there to facilitate the collaboration between the companies and the technology and the farmers to let the market decide the technology and the solution decide that we just want to facilitate it Well that brings this evening's at least formal proceedings to an end I'd like to thank all of you for joining in person today and all of the now 54 participants online and invite you to enjoy a beer and some very COVID compliance snacks and the like Thank you very much