July 31, 2018

Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) listed, New Zealand-based agricultural IoT company CropLogic has partnered with Australian agtech startup accelerator and co-working innovator SproutX to deploy its technology through the Mildura Regional Development Smart Farm project.

The project, which is being conducted as a means of laying the groundwork for future growth in the Mildura region’s horticulture and agriculture sectors through greater integration of technology, is a joint effort by SproutX, Mildura Regional Development, and the Victorian government.  Once fully established, the Smart Farm project will provide training and vocational education, while creating bridges between universities, horticultural expertise, farmers, and tech leaders.

Commercially launched into Washington State in 2017 and currently servicing about 60,000 acres of cultivated potato land in the state, CropLogic’s IoT solution improves crop yields by combining data from sensors, drones, and satellite sources in a cloud-based analytics platform. Processed along with climate data, CropLogic is able to process gathered information in the cloud to deliver optimized daily input programs for farmers.   

“The response and uptake of CropLogic realTime in the Columbia Basin, USA could not have been better this season,” said James Cooper-Jones, CEO of CropLogic. “A big part of this success was the expertise and local knowledge developed through CropLogic’s regional partnerships there.”

It is this success with crops along the U.S. West Coast that is also leading CropLogic to success in Australia, according to Cooper-Jones.

“A lot of the tree and viticulture crops that are seeing a resurgence and boom in the Mallee/Riverina are crops CropLogic has been servicing in the USA. We’re getting great feedback from these growers and we’re eager to bring this technology to Mildura and contribute to grower’s optimum yield rates there too.”

Potential for Aussie Agtech

In March of last year, SproutX announced a first close on its SproutX Venture Capital Fund at A$10 million. The backing for the fund, which is managed by Artesian Venture Partners, was committed by Artesian and from the superannuation fund Hostplus.

This swell in interest in agtech follows the release of Powering Growth: Realizing the Potential of AgTech for Australia, a report commissioned by StartupAUS, KPMG, Commonwealth Bank, and the Queensland government that determines that agtech is a critical factor in Australia’s agricultural sector, reaching its goal of becoming a $100 billion industry by 2030. However, the report goes on to state that there is a dire lack of investment, national strategy, and domestic opportunity.

“Accelerator programs such as SproutX can provide more specialised [sic] support for agtech start-ups, which can have a different and often longer product development cycle compared to straight tech start-ups,” Sarah Last, co-founder of agtech startup MimicTec, told AFR.

Indeed, the launch of the 2017 accelerator program by SproutX and the employment of its agtech fund can be steps toward fulfilling StartupAUS’ recommendations that the country strive to attract more investors into agtech and increase opportunity for technology development – something that the Smart Farm partnership is also hoped to achieve.

“The Mallee region is a leading horticultural area, supported by irrigation infrastructure that was installed 130 years ago and it has shown an ability to embrace and evolve with emerging technology,” said Andrew Lai, director of SproutX. “We’re thrilled to have the support of CropLogic in the Mallee and to partner with a company that shares our view that regional engagement is critical to agtech development and investment.”

-Lynda Kiernan