AgTech projects
AgTech Growth Fund
The AgTech Growth Fund was established to accelerate the commercialisation of business innovations in our agricultural sector. There are currently no grants available.
Non-repayable grants of up to $100,000 (ex GST) were distributed for AgTech projects in 2 rounds of funding. The recipients developed specific technology that addressed South Australia’s industry challenges.
The below reports include some of the project approaches and outcomes, including future opportunities for the funded AgTech products.
Agriculture, food, fisheries are front and centre of our economy in South Australia.
PIRSA is very active in working in advancing Ag Technology.
We have had a series of programs over the last few years.
One of those initiatives, AgTech Growth Fund, supports individual projects up to $100,000 to facilitate and stimulate the work that industry would like to do in developing the solutions to the problems that we have.
The future for AgTech in Australia is really bright.
We know agriculture, anything that is susceptible to environmental impact, has lots of challenges.
But there are so many potential solutions out there that are being developed for other industries that we can look at, for solutions that are in the paddock and on the farm today in Australia.
Whether it's solar panels or lithium batteries or edge computing, AI, it's all billions and billions of dollars that other people have already spent on R&D that we're able to get a running start on.
There's gonna be a lot of tech coming to ag in the next decade that's able to leverage all that work that's already there.
We're at the forefront of AgTech right now.
A lot of these technologies will help us use our resources a lot better and simply make the lives of the farmers a lot easier.
They can let this AgTech do some of the grunt work for them.
The grant from AgTech has really helped us with getting it up to the next level.
To be able to track temperature, moisture, humidity, and soil moisture.
We don't actually have to come to the greenhouse.
We sell at the premium end of the market and we're always trying to find ways to differentiate our brand and add as much quality as we can.
And being able to add technology into this, to improve our integrity right from a farm level through to the consumer, is gonna help us a lot.
The PIRSA AgTech Growth Fund was a perfect opportunity to enable us to take what we had started prototyping to that next level.
Capital for early stage projects, high risk projects, like robotics, is pretty hard.
And so through the AgTech Growth Fund, being able to access that capital to help work on the project when it was in its infancy was absolutely invaluable to us and absolutely accelerated it.
It's actually about the AgTech community coming together.
And I think what we've seen in South Australia is a really vibrant AgTech community working together for a common result.
And I think that's really exciting for agriculture, it's really exciting for growers.
The role that technology and digitisation is going to play in agricultural productivity and sustainability is significant.
I look forward to continuing working with industry to make sure that we are going to be a role model and example, not only nationally, and also globally.
Project reports – round 1
Recipients from the inaugural round of the AgTech Growth Fund in June 2022 were:
- Amanda Mader
- Australian Pork Research Institute
- Blue Farm Intelligence
- Coolsan Australia
- Cropify
- Flux Robotics
- McLaren Vale Wine Grape and Tourism Association
- Trust Provenance
Project reports – round 2
Recipients from the second round of the AgTech Growth Fund in August 2023 were:
- AirborneLogic Pty Ltd
- Athena Irrigation Technologies Holdings Pty Ltd (trading as Athena IR-Tech)
- Bio-optics Australia Pty Ltd
- COtL Pty Ltd
- Datahash Pty Ltd
- Mobishear Pty Ltd
- The Trustee for the S & J Eldridge Family Trust (trading as Eldridge Fresh Organics)
Virtual fencing for livestock
SARDI supported AgTech developers to deliver projects that will improve the state's agricultural industry.
Learn about the research conducted for the Commercialisation of Virtual Fencing for Livestock Project.
KI Carbon Quantification Case Study
PIRSA teamed up with FarmLab and FLINTpro to map and model carbon stocks across KI – in both soil and vegetation. This Australia-first project is giving local farmers valuable insights into how their carbon levels might change over time, supporting more sustainable practices and opening doors to future carbon market opportunities.
Learn more about the Kangaroo Island Carbon Quantification Case Study ( )