The lab has been founded at Massey University’s Palmerston North campus to engage with forward thinking farmers who might have an industry-changing idea that can be taken to commercial reality.
The lab got $400,000 earlier this year from the Primary Growth Fund and $100,000 from groups including Massey, Microsoft, Food HQ and the Factory business incubator.
Its concept came from work by Nuffield Scholar and lab chairman Mat Hocken whose scholarship work identifiied what he terms the wicked problems as the pressures of producing more food off less land start to bite.
He identified the gap between innovation relevant to farming and how it is developed.
The traditional top-down approach to innovation was proving harder to sustain given the rate of change and New Zealand’s tendency to silo research and development groups.
By working with farmers and innovation companies Hocken formalised the lab as a means to get farmer-sourced innovation developed and commercialised.
Lab vice-chairman James Stewart said once entries close three will be selected by an independent committee for further development.
The priority areas relating to the wicked problems include technology that helps farmers get closer to consumers, create new business models and enhance farms’ environmental footprints.
The other two areas are technology helping source data for better decision-making and getting greater value from regulation and compliance requirements.
The successful applicants will have access to $15,000 for further development with support from Massey and The Factory and use of latest Microsoft technology.
“The interest we have had from farmers has been fairly broad so far and there are some very entrepreneurial farmers out there who have concepts to put forward,” Stewart said.
There is no particular trend in farmer age with plenty of older farmers exhibiting at least the level of innovation their younger peers have.
“And, in fact, some of those older farmers have had to adapt and innovate a lot over their careers so you would expect them to be in here.
“Innovation for them is a mindset not limited by age.”
The lab recently ran a digital boot-camp to put innovators and farmers in the same room, something that simply has not happened enough over the years, he said.
“We got about 40 people. A lot were non-farmers but interested in what farmers are doing.
“Something we found at Mystery Creek Fieldays was the number of innovative firms keen to talk and get on-farm more with farmers but did not know how and we aim to change that.”
Manawatu appears to be developing stronger links between farmers and food producers, with greater engagement of farmers happening beyond the farm gate, he said.
“We are also getting interest in some of the environmental innovation with AgResearch working on a project and advancing it.”
The lab’s approach is starting to flip traditional top-down research and innovation models on their heads when research interests are approaching farmers to learn what they have come up with and can carry them further.
Entries close on July 15.
