INTEREST
Agritech ushers new era for sector earnings After years of languishing behind nations like Israel, the Netherlands and the United States, New Zealand’s agritech sector is staring to find a head of steam, delivering on its promise to become a top tier export earner for New Zealand. WORDS BY RICHARD RENNIE
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R E AL FARM E R
As an export earning sector generating bout $1.4 billion a year the sector has long looked to the likes of Israel for what could be achieved, where earnings from the sector are almost 10 times what New Zealand has achieved. While not often appreciated here at home, much of the impetus for the agritech sector to grow faster has come from a range of catalysts influencing how farmers can operate in New Zealand.
With increasing pressure to “mark and measure” farm environmental footprint, bought on by market expectations and government regulations, comes a need for more digitised monitoring equipment and software to manage the data flood internet enabled equipment is capable of generating. At the same time farmers have been seeking greater per head productivity from livestock, rather than simply growing a farm’s scale to achieve increased gross income.
