Esperance is home to over 400 farmers, with the distance from Perth forcing a higher level of innovation in the community. In collaboration with the Esperance Zone Innovation (EZI) grower group, AgriStart led a delegation of 15 on a 2-day agtech tour of Esperance. Attendees included 9 agtech startups in our HARVEST Agtech accelerator program, plus representatives from our program supported in GRDC and DPIRD.
Day one started with a tour of Oaks Farm and their herbicide strip trial. Owner of Oaks Farm, John Russell, is also the owner of Nerada Tea in Queensland. John spoke about their value-add plans to extract antioxidants from new shrub plantings. Farm manager Mitchell Leavers then explained how their precision seeding setup uses variable rate maps and elevation data to target deep ripping to reduce waterlogged soils.
The next stop was at Karl Raszyk’s farm where their Swarm Farm Robot was being used for autonomous spraying. They explained that the decision to move to automation was based on labour restraints, machinery costs and the ability to spray 24/7. They estimate this automation saves 120 hours of labour per one round of spraying. To ensure the robot knows where to go, the team spent two weeks mapping out the paddocks and gateways.
The cohort then travelled to Esperance Quality Grains, where the cleaning and drying of grain occurs along with the export of niche grains including faba beans, chickpeas and lupins. We were fascinated to learn faba beans are apparently a Chinese fish food delicacy!
Lucky Bay Brewery beer tour is on every Esperance agenda and was the final stop of day one. The dynamic Nigel Metz shared the journey from home brew on the farm to building a craft brewery destination. He also shared the exciting news that they are setting up to do their own malting on site.
Continuing the evening at the Brewery, the cohort attended an Esperance Chamber of Commerce event for, sponsored by EZI, with the HARVEST Agtech startups giving a 3 minute pitch to local growers, agribusinesses and chamber members. Well done Mission Critical Group and Hy-Boost Technology for winning the people’s choice awards!
Day 2 started with a beautiful Esperance sunrise and continued the premium beverage theme with a tour at Esperance Distillery. James shared his journey in scaling up production 10x in the last few years and addressing regulatory and financial challenges at scale. James also explained their sustainability focus throughout their supply chain, with even the corks being carbon neutral.
From gin tasting to olive oil tasting (and even an awesome ploughman’s lunch), the cohort ventured across to Yirri Grove where they met with owners Anne and Shane. Their focus is on producing olives with no irrigation and minimum chemical inputs. Anne also showed that the olive press can process 80kg/hour of olives into quality olive oil!
Belinda Lay then shared her 8 pillars of Agtech journey on their farm, which she uses to help other farmers. She found like-minded innovative farmers to establish the Esperance Zone Innovation group, focusing on connecting growers to technology providers.
The final stop of this two-day adventure was with innovative farmers Brad Egan, young farmer of the year, and Laura Bennett, Nuffield Scholar. They demonstrated their focus on precision farming, soil amelioration and digitisation to farm sustainably, despite their experience with declining rainfall.
We jagged beautiful weather on both days and are very grateful to the support of the EZI in helping organise this trip. To learn more about the agtech innovations being developed by the current HARVEST cohort, come to our showcase event on Wed 21st August at the RASWA Showgrounds in Claremont. AgriStart is only able to deliver HARVEST thanks to the incredible support of our partners, who recognise the value created for startups, growers and the broader ag industry from this valuable program. Thank you GRDC, DPIRD, Wrays, Esperance Zone Innovation, RASWA, AgriFutures, CSBP Fertilisers, and Innovation Cluster.
