YOUR INDUSTRY
DYNAMIC AGRI-TECH INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTED Words by Alex Tomkins and Brooke Maddison
Brooke Maddison (left), assistant innovation specialist at Zespri International (Bachelor of AgriCommerce) and Alex Tomkins (right), graduate at Southern Cross Horticulture (Bachelor of AgriCommerce)
As two young professionals starting our careers in the horticulture industry, attending the MobileTech Ag Conference was a great experience and exposed us to the dynamic agritech industry. The conference centred around discussions on the ability of technology to create value within the agri-food supply chain. We are incredibly grateful to Horticulture New Zealand for the opportunity to attend the conference through scholarship tickets.
$1.4 Billion
16
NZGROWER : MAY 2021
The agri-tech sector is currently worth 1.4 billion in export revenue and is set for further growth.
After attending the conference, we took away three key insights:
1:
The potential for New Zealand to leverage more value from agri-tech as an export industry.
significant challenge that the talent pipeline 2: The presents for the technology sector.
3:
The opportunity for technology to help solve industry wide problems with data collection and analysis as a tool to help drive more informed decision making.
As an industry currently worth $1.4 billion in export revenue already, the agri-tech sector is set for yet further growth. The innovative nature of New Zealanders with ‘number eight wire’ mentality to solve problems, puts the country in a strong position to take our agri-tech products to the world.
