Buzz word: Agtech refers to “transforming the global food system” through digital technology ACCELERATOR, incubator, start-up, connectivity — the buzzwords of the digital age can be clear as, well, mud. And when lumped under the umbrella term “agtech”, it’s no wonder farmers, investors and business leaders can be left scratching their heads. Entrepreneur group Start Up Australia says the term agtech refers to “transforming the global food system” through digital technology. Monsanto Australia technology boss James Nielsen says agtech is “about smart farmers getting smarter using digital technology”. And the Australian Farm Institute, a body increasingly wading through the agtech pool, says i
As you have seen throughout this report, aerial imagery has been a “thing” in agriculture for decades. Systems and delivery mechanisms have come, gone, and evolved. New satellite deployment for image capture has exploded in recent years, while the resolution and “on-demand” capability of drone systems have grabbed much of the current spotlight. Finally, there has been an earnest re-focus on imagery collected via manned airplane, access to a wide range of imagery has never been easier and with more options. Still, value creation using imagery on the farm has continued to be elusive, in large part because so much of what row crop farmers and technology integrators hear from imagery vendors is
These photos demonstrate the stark difference between (left) medium and very high resolution. Field imagery in agriculture has been around for decades. But as the industry stands in “Crop Season 2017,” agriculture still has a ways to go to provide actionable information instead of selling pixels and pictures. Service providers and farmers do not need imagery, they need information — actionable information. They need alerts that tell them there is something that needs to be looked at now — and that there are actions that can be taken to improve profitability. But to get here, the imagery end-user needs to start by understanding what is behind those dots on the page that make up a picture of t
