New Zealand has a proud history as a food exporter but with global population growth, changing consumer demands and technological advancements, our primary producers face a future full of challenges and questions.
How will the rise of alternative proteins impact our farmers?
What role will robots and artificial intelligence play in the growing and harvesting of crops?
What sustainable production solutions will NZ be able to offer global consumers?
The convergence of technology and food production was a hot topic for discussion at 10 Billion Mouths, a major industry event in Tauranga as part of Tech Week 2018.
A key theme was collaboration – how can NZ producers and exporters work together to best tackle the challenges of the global food market?
Appropriately, on the same day and in the same city, Agritech NZ – an exciting, collaborative, sector-wide venture – will be launched.
At the heart of any successful product or business are great people – when you bring great people together with common goals and ambitions and an openness to work together, you create incredible impact.
This is the essence of what collaboration is about and the reason Callaghan Innovation supports taking early stage businesses offshore to events like the World Dairy Expo and on United States agritech missions.
At the early stage of developing a great technology solution there is so much uncertainty and so many unanswered questions.
Who can I talk to in a new market?
Will my product meet that market’s needs?
How do I sell it there?
These are hard questions to answer about a market like the US or Europe when you’re sitting in NZ.
When we talk with experienced NZ exporters – those companies that have developed technology and got their products offshore – we often hear stories of how they spent years developing new products before launching them offshore only to find they didn’t meet local regulations or didn’t work with local farming systems so had to be redeveloped and relaunched.
If this country is going to build more successful growth companies we need to shift the focus from developing tech in NZ that solves only NZ problems to ensuring our potential exporters think about building in global solutions earlier so they can scale faster.
There is great capability in NZ to get companies prepared to be globally focused.
Our government agencies share the common vision that we need to develop locally and think globally.
Support and resources is available for export-focused companies to draw on,.
Callaghan Innovation helps businesses to innovate and create new products and services the world wants.
Trade and Enterprise provides know-how and know-who to help export focused businesses grow bigger, better and faster.
The NZ Venture Investment Fund provides early stage capital to help tech companies gain scale.
The NZ Story helps kiwi companies tell their story offshore.
Agritech NZ works collaboratively to connect the agritech community to international capital and new market opportunities.
By leveraging the capabilities these agencies offer, our agritech exporters can build the knowledge and know-how they need to enter new markets, learn how to talk about their products and their company without giving away valuable intellectual property, know what they want to achieve and who to connect with and have the ability to hit the ground running in a new territory.
Tapping into these resources does take time, energy and commitment from everyone involved but the benefits that we see are huge as companies learn that they need a different mindset when they’re selling their products offshore.
And, yes, collaboration is not easy.
It takes willing partners and time to build up trust, find common ground between participants and identify a range of champions and sponsors from each organisation.
These sponsors and champions need to have regular updates on the successes so they stay engaged.
The evidence of the benefits this approach eventually delivers is overwhelming.
NZ has an impressive agriculture sector with a strong history of developing great food to feed the world.
Technology is enabling us to do that a lot more efficiently and effectively and this country is also a great test-bed for new ideas and innovations.
We’re in a prime position to make the most of the agritech initiatives that will help feed the world’s 10 billion mouths and if we do it effectively we’ll prosper.
