9 minute read
Innovations
by AgriHQ
Peace of mind
By Samantha Tennent
Statistics from FMG show around 30% of milk claims are due to antibiotics contaminating milk.
Contamination is a headache for any farmer, no matter what stage it gets discovered, but Nathan and Lois Smith have developed a clever solution to reduce the chances of contamination happening.
“It was during the once-a-day conference in Nelson earlier this year, FMG was talking about how often they deal with contaminated milk claims and I thought there has to be an easy way to reduce the risk,” Nathan says.
“I came home and connected with our local electrician, and we designed a device that easily shows you from the milking area which direction the vat tap is, and whether the milk is going into the vat or not.
“It had to be safe for cows, I didn’t want any risks of stray voltage, and I knew it had to be easy to install.”
Keeping it simple, they have called the device Vat Guard and built a plug-and-play system that farmers can install themselves. It has colour coded lights that you can see in the milking area to show which way the tap is pointed.
“It’s another form of visual communication and protects farmers from grading. There’s no questioning which way to tap is, or having to go check to be sure,” he says.
The first prototype was built in their shed at home in Turakina, near Whanganui.
They installed it in their herringbone and built another for his brother Kane Brisco, who has been promoting the device on his Facebook page Farm Fit NZ.
“We’ve had farmers contact us through Facebook or over the phone, and one guy ordered one straight after he had a mishap. One of the team went to change the tap over but got waylaid and forgot what he was doing.
“They caught it in time but the stress could have easily been avoided,” he says.
“It’s a great tool for sheds that have more than one person milking, making sure it’s clear what is happening with the vat tap.”
They are managing to turn orders around within a week or so, with their electrician building his components in the evenings after work and Nathan and Lois putting the rest of the system
Lois and Nathan Smith developed Vat Guard, a simple device that reduces the risk of contamination from antibiotics.
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Nathan Smith
together, still from their shed at home. It takes about six hours to build one device.
They have also been trying to give back to their community where they can, including buying 33 pairs of children’s pyjamas for families in Whanganui recently from some of the sale proceeds.
“It’s not a big money-making scheme for us, we really just want to help farmers out,” he says.
They relate because they have had plenty of mishaps themselves, double-checking to make sure the tap has been changed over.
They are sharemilking 500 Friesian cows in Turakina, where they have been for 10 years. They were variable order sharemilking till they bought the herd five years ago and run a no bobby calf system.
They transitioned to once-a-day three years ago and are impressed how the Friesian cows handled it.
“There weren’t any udders blowing out or anything; the ones who didn’t cope were easy to spot, they just got fat and dried themselves off,” he says.
“We run 450 beef animals. It can be pretty intensive running both farms, but once-a-day has really been a game-changer. And we are really proud that we eliminated bobby calves from our system.”
The Smiths have three children still at home and their oldest is farming in Taranaki.
“The youngest one is into farming, but not cows he reckons,” Nathan says with a laugh.
With the farm and family under control, and now that they have their vat tap worries taken care of, they are keen to help as many farmers as they can with their Vat Guard system.
“It provides that peace of mind that the right milk is going to the right place, without any confusion and fewer stuff-ups,” he says. n
Vat Guard is a plug-and-play system that farmers can install themselves to show which way the milk is flowing. Vat Guard has colour coded lights installed in the milking area to show which way the tap is pointed.
3 YR 100% REPLACEMENT
Top award for farmers’ saviour
By Samantha Tennent
Clever Kiwis have come up with brilliant solutions to simple problems faced by the agricultural industry for this year’s Fieldays Innovations Awards.
Farmers have always faced water supply issues, not least from cows who have always been too rough with trough ballcocks, snapping arms left, right and centre as they nudge them around while drinking.
And as Ric Awburn watched cows at an empty trough break an arm one evening, he thought it needed some give to withstand the rough treatment, so he put his thinking cap on and went to work.
Two years later, Springarm Products Limited developed a durable and reliable ballcock arm that is durable, reliable and easy to install. It was named the winner of the Prototype award at the 2021 Fieldays Innovations Awards.
“We call it the farmer’s little saviour,” Springarm Products Ltd director Marianne Awburn says.
“We’ve talked to so many farmers who were relieved there’s a solution to their problem that they’ve been facing for so long.”
They were gobsmacked when the award was announced at the awards evening at Fieldays on June 17. More than 65 entries had been received from across New Zealand.
“Innovation has been at the core of Fieldays since its inception more than 50 years ago and this year is no exception,” Fieldays Innovations event manager Gail Hendricks says.
“The calibre of entries for our 2021 event has taken things to the next level and showcased the primary industry’s latest and greatest technology and developments.”
The awards had a new format for 2021, after covid-19 saw the 2020 event hosted online.
“Categories were organised to follow the innovation lifecycle and provide the support, mentoring and exposure innovators needed to bring their revolutionary products to market or grow market share,” Hendricks says.
There were strong hi-tech entries throughout the competition, but Springarm impressed the judges with their simple and elegant solution to a well-defined common problem. The judges appreciated the thought put into the design of the product and the clear and immediate commercial opportunity it presented.
Two other awards were taken home by Cropsy Technologies, the Early Stage award and the Young Innovator’s award. The team of young engineers are innovating in the crop analytics space with their scalable AI-enabled hardware.
They presented a system with an impressive combination of smart mechanical, electronic and software AI, which delivers passive data collection during existing grower activities.
“Growers can’t monitor every vine in their vineyard, and they don’t have the
The team from Springarm Products Ltd with their award-winning trough ballcock they call the farmer’s little saviour. The innovation won the Prototype award at Fieldays.
Cropsy Technologies won the Early Stage award and the Young Innovator’s award for their scalable AI-enabled hardware. Cropsy Technologies co-founder and chief operating officer Leila Deljkovic shows the technology to Fieldays visitors.
The team from Intelligent Growth Solutions Ltd (IGS) won the Growth and Scale award for its modular and scalable vertical farming system.
resources to,” Cropsy Technologies cofounder and chief operating officer Leila Deljkovic says.
“Being engineers we thought, how can we help?”
They have created a camera with machine learning that looks out for disease, counts bunches of vines, detects missing or dying vines and anything that is wrong with the plants. It attaches to the front of a tractor.
Their innovation will help growers minimise crop loss, estimate yield to improve supply chains and replant with precision. They are currently trialing with large enterprise wineries, including Pernod Ricard Winemakers, and are looking for pilot partners for commercial deployment next season.
The Growth and Scale award was won by Intelligent Growth Solutions Ltd (IGS) for its modular and scalable vertical farming system. It can generate yields of 225% compared with glasshouse production, with the potential to reduce energy usage by up to 50%, reduce chemical use, enable more efficient land-use and reduce labour costs by up to 80% versus other indoor growing environments.
Hendricks is confident in the future of the primary industry with innovative thinkers across NZ.
“As we grapple with changing conditions globally and find ways to produce more with less, innovation is not only a top priority for businesses, it is a necessity,” she says.
“The ingenuity and cutting-edge ideas put forward at this year’s event demonstrate that the primary industry is well-positioned to solve some of the biggest challenges we’re facing.”
Fieldays were extremely proud to see another year of such a high standard of entries across all categories and are confident that these winners will positively shape and impact the primary industries landscape, as so many previous Fieldays Innovation Award winners have. n
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