Directory

Aeration Control’s Aeration Manager ® is the only controller in the world that actively tracks the cooling front or drying front through the silos. So, what does that mean for the farmer?

Better management and lower cost
Creating a proper aeration system is much more than installing a few fans and an on/off switch. That’s why at Aeration Control Australia we can design your system from the ground up to guarantee that the installed system achieves the desired outcome.
This starts with having the best aeration controller in the world but certainly doesn’t end there since a proper aeration system consists of many components.

Less operator involvement
The Aeration Manager controls all the components of the Aeration System: the fans, the generator, the fill lid actuator and the weather station. This means that once the target operating values have been entered, no further involvement in necessary. Having to open and close the fill lid to prevent rain from entering the silo would still require operator action and that is why we include a fully automatic fill lid control function with the controller. Similarly, we include an automatic generator start/stop facility to only run the generator a fan is required to run.

Lower operating cost
Proper grain aeration prevents the fan from operating when the ambient condition hasn’t got the capacity to improve the grain in storage. This prevents the ambient air from reheating previously cooled grain.

Lower installation costs
Our Industrial Automation approach to grain aeration means that we can control multiple fans from a single control cable thereby avoiding the need for expensive control panels. This includes the actuators and the generator

Improved system visibility
Full remote control and monitoring is provided on mobile devices and PCs through the use of our cloud-based software

Agerris is solving some of the largest problems facing farmers in the horticulture industry. We have created a self driving robotic farmhand that understands the size and status of the crop and can act in real time to perform critical on-farm tasks. It reduces the reliance on labour and chemicals to improve sustainability. We call it the Digital Farmhand. Our Digital Farmhand is an efficient solar electric robot that will move autonomously around the farm as it carries out its work. It does this through a combination of GPS and camera mounted control systems to follow paths, move along rows, navigate turns and avoid obstacles.

The Digital Farmhand will collect information on everything it sees using the on-board cameras and sensors. The crop intelligence system collects images at an individual plant level from the first growth stage. It will learn about the different crops that have been planted and the factors that impact crop health and yield, and report back on the location and volume of crops vs weeds. The more ground it covers the more it learns and so the more effective it becomes in the field.

Once the Digital Farmhand has been trained it can act in real time using intelligent precision tools. Today’s robot already has permission to chip out weeds as it travels along the vegetable beds leaving the crops to grow in a healthy and chemical free environment. Future plans include a list of capabilities that extend to individual plant spraying, thinning, and harvesting. It all depends on the needs of the farmer.

Today we can help vegetable growers feed the world in a sustainable way. Soon we will help tree crops growers and livestock farmers in the same way.

Farm businesses are complex and highly varied, with many processes to manage. No off-the-shelf farm management platform can do what all farm businesses need. AgKonect applies a highly configurable platform to existing farm processes, solving the most urgent problems in order of priority. We aim to let farmers keep doing things the way they like, while removing data inefficiencies. Data should be captured once and instantly converted to information that can be used for timely and effective decisions and actions. AgKonect changes farm management software for the better.

AgUnity has first-movers advantage combined with a unique skill set in startups, tech, finance, agriculture and sustainable development. We combine world-class software development with a program team that has decades of experience working with remote, last mile agricultural communities.

We have a working and in-use smartphone product and critically has secured contracts to deliver our services to:

• UN World Food Programme (supporting ~92 million beneficiaries each year);
• CTA, which encompasses 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) countries;
• Agriterra (a cooperative enhancement agency targeting 1 million smallholder farmers);
• Dubai Expo Live 2020 (an innovation program connecting and supporting over 120 impact solutions worldwide)

AgUnity has also won numerous awards including:

• FAC Global Agripreneur of the Year 2018
• Tech4Farmers 2.0 Asia Challenge (2017)
• FAC Australia (2017), Mekong Agritech Challenge (2017)
• Global Forum on Innovations in Agriculture (2018), Finext Awards Singapore (2019)
• World Blockchain Summit (2019)
• BBVA’s Open Talent Award for Sustainability (2019) and
• Runner-up Investible Games Melbourne (2019)

AgUnity has over $1M in revenue for 2019 and $1.5M in assets and has been selected as part of IIX Global’s exclusive [email protected] 500 inaugural cohort for raising capital from impact investors throughout Asia-Pacific.

Many Australian businesses often don’t know how to access the opportunity in Asia and how to stand out. Logistics infrastructure is not uniform across all countries in Asia, regulations vary, and last mile fulfillment is challenging. Businesses need to span across mass-volume distribution with scalable supply chain processes, while market-centric marketing, payments, and customer service remain a challenge for less experienced exporters.

At the same time, huge opportunity exists in the SE Asia market. Southeast Asia’s internet economy is slated to be worth more than US$240 billion by 2025 with e-commerce predicted to be worth US$102 billion, with 40% of the total value of the region’s internet economy to be driven by e-commerce.

Our marketplace is powered by Alpina-X – our purpose built ecommerce platform that is the bridge from Australia to Asia, providing a seamless, stable and scalable full-service cross-border e-commerce solution. It is an omnichannel ecommerce platform solution that includes marketplace, supply chain, marketing, and customer service functionality for high quality, trusted brands.

Australian suppliers are positioned to operate under the Ally’s Basket brand leveraging their existing domestic ecommerce processes. Alternatively suppliers can employ Alpina-X as a solution to enable cross border trade direct to overseas markets in SE Asia.

Arugga is developing autonomous ground robots for treating greenhouse plants, with the intention of reducing labor costs, which constitute 30-50% of growers’ expenses, especially with increasing challenges of unavailability and turnover of labor. Our ground robots will carry several modules, performing labor-intensive tasks as well as those of higher-skilled workers who are becoming scarce as well. Our first product, pollination of greenhouse tomatoes, will replace humans in countries where bumble-bees are banned or unavailable, and in the rest of the world replace the work of bumblebees, the most widely used pollination solution, solving their sensitivity to environmental conditions and pesticides, and preventing the spread of viruses.

Both our pollination solution as well as future modules, such as flower pruning, are designed to treat the plants without contact, thus minimizing disease spread within the greenhouse. In addition, by leasing our robots, growers will be able to save from day 1, by reducing their labor costs. Finally, with the sensors and cameras collecting data on a daily basis from all plants, we will be able to provide valuable insights and monitoring of numerous plant and environmental parameters currently sparsely sampled by the growers, and improve their practices.

Many of today’s agriculture and horticulture practices are based on historical knowledge, best practice and gut feel of the farmer. However, basing decisions on actual data is becoming increasingly more important for everyone, especially justifying the use of critical resources and minimising costs and inputs where and whenever possible. Athena Irrigation Technologies offers a low-cost, cloud-based system that allows the farmer to watch the grapevine breathe in near real-time to understand when the vines should be irrigated.

With our solution, vineyard operators and other horticulturalists can base their irrigation schedule directly on the plant water needs.With Athena Irrigation Transp-IR sensors, proximal sensing of grapevines within the vineyard allows for targeted irrigation scheduling, plant water status monitoring and evidence of recovery after heat stress events. Combined with weather forecast data, it will provide the basis for assisting the grower with an understanding of when and how much they should water next. The data is delivered in near real-time, from the sensors to the cloud via a LoRa wireless communication system, and the data interpretation is done through a proprietary algorithm owned by Athena.

Our research has demonstrated that irrigation decisions based on direct plant water needs rather than traditionally inferred management practices from soil moisture probes, thermal imaging and gut feel has been shown to have 30% water savings. If the Australian irrigated grapevines had an uptake of 10% of our product, there could be a water saving of 15,000 mega litres annually. A little water saving can go a long way, and grape vines are just the beginning.

Bee Innovative is unlocking global agriculture by maximising pollination. In the age of precision agriculture, bee pollination practices are largely the same as the 1800’s where producers hope the bees will pollinate their entire crop. Poor pollination has a significant impact on the bottom line, totalling billions of dollars each year in lost yield.

Bee Innovative brings pollination into the modern age with precision pollination. Using BeeDarTM technology, a radar-like sensor for bees. Bee Innovative provides producers pollination maps using BeeDarTM to identify, track and report bee pollination activity in near real time. This revolutionises production because for the first time, producers can identify areas of poor pollination activity during pollination as opposed to waiting for fruit when it is too late. This critical information allows producers to recapture productivity that would have otherwise been lost, increasing crop yield, quality and value.

BeeDarTM technology is unique because it can scan, identify and track thousands of bees simultaneously. BeeDarTM is bee friendly because it doesn’t require the capture of bees. Mounted under UAVs or drones BeeDarTM sensors can scan crops on any scale. Bee Innovative can help you measure, map and manage pollination to unlock the potential of your crop.

BioScout’s UVP is real-time monitoring of the pathogens in a farm field pre- and post-fungicide spraying. BioScout’s services provide much needed data and visibility to end-users that ultimately saves them yield quality and quantity as well as minimising fungicide resistance. Unlike traditional disease detection and management methods, which can only see and react to diseases after they have spread costing farmers billions, BioScout’s airborne disease tracking platform lets farmers know when disease strikes prophylactically and what they can do about it.

The direct benefits for farmers and agronomists are:

• Improved fungicide efficiency – end-users are able to track how well fungicides are working and are able to monitor appropriate levels to know exactly when to spray;
• Smart management of fungal disease loads – farmers are given greater information about paddock conditions which can inform sowing and harvesting plans;
• Monitor increasing fungicide resistance before it becomes irreversible;
• Maximising yield quality and quantity.