2022 Agri/Foodtech Showcase ft Farm Fumbles Event Wrap
On a wintery night in mid June, 70+ SproutX community members with agri-corporate, farmer entrepreneurs, agrifoodtech founders, academics, agrifood tech curious, and research backgrounds got together for a cozy little evening of networking. A long time coming since the community is brought together to celebrate the return of in-person networking post lockdown, catch a breather, and enjoy a night of storytelling at SproutX’s very first Farm Fumbles series.
update on industry
Left to Right: Chris Staff (Bayer), Paul Wood AO (Dairy Australia, CSIRO Future Protein Mission), and Maxie Juang (SproutX)
Opening the event with a segment on industry updates, Maxie Juang, Program Manager at SproutX, together alongside industry veterans Chris Staff, Head of Digital Farming at Bayer (SproutX’s premier sponsor) and Paul Wood AO, Board Member at Dairy Australia and Advisor for CSIRO Future Protein Mission (SproutX mentor) - had a candid chat on where agrifoodtech is going as a sector, some common pitfalls, and sage advice to the tech curious entrepreneurs in the crowd.
Chris highlighted the need for elimination of redundancies and duplications in the agtech solutions put forward so that startup founders can focus on the core mission. “One of the challenges I can still see present in the space is that there is a lot of duplications, there's a lot of common elements that many startups have: ‘Where is my database stored?’; ‘How does that interact with my solution?’ that is being developed individually. I think that creates waste and disrupts the startups and founders from their mission, preventing them from doing things they do really well.”
Paul Wood added that "80% of the agrifoodtech solutions won't make it big, but focus on your initial drive and your WHY when tackling an agri-food-climate problem. Adopt the STEM researchers' mindset on failing fast in the pursuit of the solution that benefit the wider community."
A strong emphasis on the grit behind an agile and lean startup mentality.
Amongst the topics covered in the panel discussion, one key theme at the event really hit home for many of the attendees: the genuine human connection that forms the foundation of strong partnerships and relationship building as the basis of networking.
Farm fumbles
In the second segment of the night, Maxie introduced to the room SproutX’s “Farm Fumbles” series, a fostered safe environment where industry members come together to candidly share their experience, provide support/ validation for fellow community members, and hold space for each other within the collective journey on lifting the Australian agrifoodtech sector.
“We’ve got to do this in a relationship that works for our partners, and if they’re successful there is a higher chance that we would be too” Jack Holden, Fonterra Group
Kicking off the main event of the night is Jack Holden, GM of Sustainability APAC at Fonterra Group, sharing a fumble story on how a misplaced decimal point led to unfavourable results and the work on recovering from fumbles together with partners. Jack reinforced the importance of partnerships that are based on genuine connections and the mutual commitment on making the relationship work, “We’ve got to do this in a relationship that works for our partners, and if they’re successful there is a higher chance that we would be too”.
The second part of the segment was led by Jennifer Medway, SproutX mentor, owner of Penrose Pastoral Co (20k flock) and an eighth generation farmer from NSW, who took the stage to share an epic marketing fail (on the supplier’s part). An expensive piece of dredging machinery where the company has prioritized branding over functionality, painting the equipment orange, resulting in the confusion over where the silt starts and the machine ends.
All in the name of branding 🤷♂️
“To a farmer it doesn’t matter to us however you define agritech, a new piece of technology will not just in itself make a farmer’s life better.” Jennifer Medway, Penrose Pastoral
Her message for aspiring founders was simple and clear: “To a farmer it doesn’t matter to us however you define agritech, a new piece of technology will not just in itself make a farmer’s life better. I don’t care whether this app integrates with my phone or desktop, there is no capacity within the team to figure that out. For farmers, all we care about is whether it addresses our problems, helps with ROI and yield forecasting/ management.” Being able to demonstrate that your technology is farmer centred can help farmers in making tech adoption decisions.
Events like SproutX’s Farm Fumbles are crucial for the agrifoodtech industry to help shift from a zero-sum mentality to an error-friendly culture, which is the foundation for scaling innovation.
Afterall, deep down we are all in the humbling work of supporting the Australian Ag Industry to feed the nation/ the world 🌏
Farm fumbles video
what’s next?
Applications for the annual SproutX Accelerator Program is now open.
🌱 Learn more here, apply here, or flick any query you may have to adrian.myint@sproutx.com.au.
Expression of Interest for the bi-annual SproutX Pre-accelerator Program is now open.
🌱 Learn more from our website here and a quick blurb on LinkedIn here.
🌱 Catch the recap on "Disrupting Victoria's $17.8B Agriculture Sector through SproutX" with SproutX program manager, Maxie Juang, and LaunchVic CEO, Kate Cornick.
