Technology

ProTag Microsoft finalists Massey PhD students Nathaniel Faulkner, Tyrel Glass and Baden Parr’s creation ProTag has made the finals of Microsoft’s global competition the Imagine Cup.

Student innovators

By Gerald Piddock

A trio of Kiwi innovators are getting their invention noticed on the global stage.

Asmart livestock ear tag developed by three Massey University engineering PhD students as an agritech startup is a finalist in the Imagine Cup, a worldwide technology competition organised by Microsoft.

Baden Parr, Tyrel Glass and Nathaniel Faulkner founded ProTag, an innovative smart ear tag for livestock.

They liken their product to a Fitbit – an activity tracker which applies detailed machine learning to movement data in order to extract behavioural information.

The tag detects the movement of an animal and can recognise when it’s grazing, sleeping or running.

This information is then sent to the cloud and used to predict if the animal is developing an illness.

Farmers can use these insights to take preventative health measures that reduce vet fees, boost productivity and increase animal welfare.

The product idea came from a meeting with a young farming couple who were seeking help to invent a smart ear tag that could give them insights into their herd’s health.

The New Zealand trio are recent graduates of Massey’s Bachelor of Engineering programme, specialising in electronics and computer engineering, which is how they met. They are now all studying towards their doctorates at Massey’s Auckland campus.

Parr says it’s surreal to have made the finals.

“We’re proud to be representing NZ, it puts us on the map with Microsoft and hopefully we can do everyone proud,” he says.

The idea beat tens of thousands of challengers from across the Asia-Pacific regional finals, before making a world shortlist of 12, and then being named the winner of the Earth category.

They will now compete against the winners of the education, healthcare and lifestyle categories, which were won by teams from the US, Kenya and Thailand, respectively.

The competition brings together student innovators to tackle social issues with technology and has been run by Microsoft for 19 years.

The winners of the competition will receive US$75,000 (about NZ$105,000) in prize money and a mentoring session with Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella.

The three students cite their experience at Massey’s engineering programme and their supervisor associate professor Dr Fakhrul Alam’s approach to learning as major motivation behind getting involved with a competition like this, over and above their study.

“Entering this competition is a reflection of Fakhrul’s mentoring style – he’s thrifty with student expertise,” Glass says.

“He’ll connect a group of us who are working on similar projects in a room and say we should learn off each other.”

Faulkner agreed.

“He (Dr Alam) has a lot of trust in our abilities, he recognises what we’re good at and lets us get on with it,” Faulkner says.

Alam has been with Massey for more than 15 years and says he has always encouraged his PhD students to extend their skills and interest while studying.

“I want to keep my students engaged and motivated to try new things and be entrepreneurial – I often ask them ‘why do you want to work for someone else?’” Alam says.

He says being a student is the time to experiment with taking risks, making mistakes and using those lessons to grow personally and professionally. He is proud the team has made it this far.

“When you see your students competing and winning against the world’s best, it validates what we do here and why we come to work each day,” he says.

“We are producing world-class engineers and that’s what the world needs. It’s an incredibly satisfying feeling.” n

*See in store for terms and conditions. Promotion starts 1 March 2021 and ends 31 July 2021 only at participating vet clinics.

What’s your number?

By Samantha Tennent

Measuring greenhouse gases will be a key to help farmers reduce their emissions.

By the end of 2022, all farmers in New Zealand need to know their greenhouse gas (GHG) numbers. He Waka

Eke Noa: The Primary Sector Climate

Action Partnership has assessed several calculators and Alltech E-CO2 Dairy EA has been assessed and classified by the organisation as a GHG calculator for dairy farms.

“Farmers are always striving to improve animal health, welfare and productivity,”

Alltech NZ innovation sales manager

Nigel Meads says.

“What makes the Alltech E-CO2 approach such an exciting concept is that it quantifies the gains in environmental performance that come along with these improvements and is focused on the animal, the environment and profitability.”

The Dairy EA model has been developed to help producers measure and lower the carbon footprint of their dairy operation. These accredited assessments capture vast in-depth data on animal production, health, feed, fertiliser, water, energy and resource-use.

The model goes on to provide producers with a summary report that splits out the three key GHGs and identifies the sources of each.

The report also provides guidance on recommended actions for the farmer to help improve their numbers.

Knowing a farm’s nitrous oxide and methane numbers is the first step toward managing and knowing how to reduce on-farm emissions.

“Measurement is key. Our farmers understanding their numbers means they are in a position to decide how to make changes to their farming practices to mitigate or reduce emissions,” He

Waka Eke Noa: The Primary Sector

Climate Action Partnership programme director Kelly Forster says.

Sequestration is one of the most important pillars that the He Waka Eke

Noa partners are working through this year. The partnership is developing recommendations for an appropriate farm level emissions pricing system, which includes recognition and measurement of on-farm sequestration. The pricing system needs to be recommended to ministers next year and be functioning in 2025.

“All farmers knowing their numbers by December 2022 is an ambitious target,” Forster says.

“He Waka Eke Noa’s partners are committed to supporting their farmers. This includes development of new calculators to support farmers across sectors to know their GHG footprint and how to reduce it well before our pricing system is ready to kick in.”

Since December last year, when the first Greenhouse Gases: Farm Planning Guidance was released, industry bodies have been incorporating information relevant to their levy payers into their Farm Environment Plans (FEPs). The guidance sets out basic principles to guide farmers, growers and advisors, with practical information on opportunities to reduce GHG emissions and to capture carbon.

Alltech has a mission of Working Together for a Planet of Plenty, which calls for the agri-food industry to utilise science-based solutions, collaboration and innovation to help ensure sustainable food production, while conserving the Earth’s natural resources. Working with He Waka Eke Noa and NZ farmers to provide measurement tools to ensure their sustainability and profitability contributes to Alltech’s Planet of Plenty mission, as well as the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13: Climate Action, which is one of the nine SDGs to which Alltech is committed.

“We always aim to provide farmers with the information, advice and support they require to implement positive environmental management steps,” Meads says.

“Lowering a farm’s carbon footprint goes hand-in-hand with increasing farm efficiency and therefore profitability, which is a win for everyone.” n

Knowing a farm’s nitrous oxide and methane numbers is the first step toward managing and knowing how to reduce on-farm emissions.

MORE:

For more information check out alltech-eco2.com and hewakaekenoa.nz

App to combat buttercup

By Tony Benny

A phone app developed by AgResearch has proven to be universal with greenkeepers using the app to keep weeds down on the fairways.

Aphone app developed by AgResearch to help New Zealand dairy farmers find the best way to control giant buttercup in their pastures has found a new use on the fairways of golf courses in North Carolina.

The Grassland Cover Estimator phone app was launched by AgResearch in February to give farmers a simple way to quantify how badly the unpalatable, invasive pest has infested their pastures.

A companion web app can then recommend which of nearly 50 herbicides would be the best weapon against the weed.

AgReseach principal scientist Graeme Bourdot says the phone app has already been downloaded more than 400 times, both in NZ and globally, and the companion web app has attracted similar attention.

“It’s a pretty cool little tool,” Bourdot says.

“A dairy farmer can grab the app, walk across the paddock, get the percentage of giant buttercup cover and then put that number into the web app to decide which herbicide is the best option and if indeed that’s going to be profitable.”

While the companion apps were developed specifically to assist farmers dealing with giant buttercup, the phone tool works with any plant and is attracting plenty of attention, some of it from outside the dairy industry.

“Fonterra are interested in using it to measure the amount of clover in a pasture and another group of dairy farmers are interested in using it to measure plantain because they have to show that at least 30% of their pasture is in plantain,” he says.

“And now the pig industry, who

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“Now a web app has been developed, with nice graphs that enable you to simulate what will happen for a given farm with a given starting population, if you don’t do any grubbing over the next 50 years.” Graeme Bourdot

have to show that the amount of bare ground in their paddocks is less than a certain minimum level for their farm environment plans (FEPs), are interested in using it to measure that.

“The thing’s kind of snowballed in terms of interest out there, so I’m pleased we made it a generic tool. We developed it for this particular giant buttercup project but you can set up any sort of project in it you want.”

While the interest shown by NZ farmers outside Golden Bay where giant buttercup is a significant issue was gratifying, Bourdot says he was surprised to hear that greenkeepers on golf courses in the US had also seen it’s potential.

They heard about it from North Carolina State University weed scientist Professor Joe Neal who spent last

AgResearch principal scientist Graeme Bourdot using the buttercup app which has been downloaded more than 400 times in New Zealand and globally. An app is now available for farmers to measure the quantity of buttercup in pastures.

summer in NZ working with Bourdot to formally evaluate the app’s precision and accuracy.

He’s since returned to the US but the pair keep in touch, working together on a scientific paper about the app.

“He phoned me the other day and said the greenkeepers in North Carolina are really interested in using this app because they have to keep the weeds down to below 5% of the total pasture and this would show their manager they’ve achieved that goal,” he says.

“It’s surprising how many people out there with various sorts of pastures and grassy areas have a requirement to measure the cover of different elements.”

Now Bourdot has turned his attention to another weed, nassella tussock, also unpalatable to stock and highly invasive. Nassella can be found on sites throughout NZ but is worst on North Canterbury hill country where back in the 1940s, it covered thousands of hectares and it took gangs of workers armed with grubbers to bring it under control.

Grubbing is still the principal method of control and it’s compulsory for landowners to grub out any nassella plants they see in spring, when it flowers and is easiest to identify.

But not all farmers take well to being told they have to grub the weed and that can be a source of conflict between them and the regulating authority Environment Canterbury (ECan). So Bourdot’s team at AgResearch have come up with a tool to show farmers what will likely happen, depending on whether they grub as instructed if they fail to take action.

“We built the model based on a decade’s worth of data and published that and then we thought this model’s capable of so much more,” says Bourdot, who’s spent much of his scientific career studying nassella.

“Now a web app has been developed with nice graphs that enable you to simulate what will happen for a given farm with a given starting population if you don’t do any grubbing over the next 50 years. And if I grub it the way ECan says I have to, what will the result be?”

The app hasn’t been released yet, but Bourdot believes it could be a valuable tool for the regional council to show farmers the value of keeping on top of the potentially devastating weed.

“Here’s a scientific model that tells us if you stop grubbing now, this is what your farm is going to look like in 25 or 50 years, and this is what the impact will be on your neighbour,” he says. n

Accelerating IoT

By Samantha Tennent

Global Internet of Things (IoT) availability will make life for farmers much easier through a new programme that will provide greater connectivity.

Connectivity issues can hinder business performance, and prevent adoption of new technology. But global mobile satellite communications company Inmarsat has launched an Application and Solution Provider (ASP) programme to support companies operating in areas with unreliable connectivity and accelerate the availability of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.

“Inmarsat and our partners have been pioneering satellite-enabled IoT for a number of years. With this new initiative we are set to accelerate the roll-out of IoT into remote areas of the world where the data points might be the most valuable,” Inmarsat enterprise president Mike Carter says.

“Turnkey solutions are ready-to-go; full package solutions that are easily deployed or implemented in a business are key to this acceleration, and will be created in our ASP. Along with Inmarsat’s reliable connectivity to ensure that the IoT solution works wherever it is needed.”

IoT describes the network of physical objects that are embedded with sensors, software and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the internet.

In agriculture, IoT solutions are focused on helping farmers close the supply demand gap, by ensuring high yields, profitability and protection of the environment.

Precision agriculture is the approach of using IoT technology to ensure optimum application of resources to achieve high crop yields and reduce operational costs. IoT in agriculture technologies comprise specialised equipment, wireless connectivity, software and IT services.

Under Inmarsat’s ASP, an ecosystem will be developed that will ensure that companies operating in areas without reliable connectivity, or with missioncritical connectivity needs, including farms in New Zealand, will be able to access a broad choice of IoT solutions to enhance the efficiency, safety and sustainability of their businesses.

The ASP programme will provide a support framework and is open to new entrants, disruptors and established brands of any size who have developed an innovative digital product or service but may need additional support to exploit the benefits of satellite-enabled IoT solutions.

Inmarsat will provide dedicated technical guidance on how to integrate and support its highly reliable satellite services, go-to-market strategy planning and exposure to the Inmarsat distribution channel to enable access to new markets.

Providers working across a highly diverse range of industries, including agriculture, aid and NGO, energy, exploration and leisure, media, mining, transport and utilities, as well as agnostic technology providers, will be considered for membership.

“The ASP Programme is a flexible initiative to nurture those relationships that fit each organisation’s specific needs, either directly or through one of our main distribution partners. Some providers may simply need reliable satellite connectivity, while others might benefit from deeper involvement to expand their business globally,” he says.

The programme launches with two innovative partners on board – Australian-based agri-tech company Farmbot Monitoring Solutions and Swedish-owned engineering product company MinFarm – who are focused on supporting hardware engineering for extreme environments. They plan to bring more partners in over the coming months.

“Being involved with Inmarsat’s ASP project is an exciting step forward in the development of Farmbot solutions,” Farmbot Monitoring Solutions managing director Andrew Coppin says.

“It has the potential to significantly improve the management of critical water resources for farmers worldwide, resulting in tangible productivity gains, carbon reduction and ultimately more sustainable outcomes. We look forward to announcing the development of ondemand cameras for farmers over the coming months.” n

Swedish-owned engineering product company MinFarm, who are focused on supporting hardware engineering for extreme environments have partnered with Inmarsat to provide greater connectivity to rural areas.