The first Findex and Australian Agritech Association National Sector Survey has been released as part of the Australian Agritech Sector Report, which outlines the challenges and opportunities facing agtech adoption.
The survey not only identified opportunities for the sector but also addressed the challenges it faced and the support it needed to thrive.
It includes data from 72 respondents and gathered expert insights across a range of areas including sector strengths and weaknesses.
More than a quarter of respondents were scaling, 27 per cent were established, and 31pc pre-revenue generating or emerging. Nearly 43pc were software companies, 20pc product companies, and 37pc had service-based business models.
About half of the responses came from NSW and Vic and close to a third from Qld and SA.
Key findings in the survey include:
Challenges: The highest rated challenge was a lack of skilled workers. This was followed by on-farm connectivity, access to data and sharing knowledge, after sales service and support, and bio-security risk. The lowest rated challenges include overseas competition, data privacy, lack of local support for Australian made, and climate change impact and lack of preparedness
Priorities: Respondents were asked to consider priority areas of focus to address challenges and weaknesses and take advantage of the strengths for agtech in Australia. The top priority was communication between producer, business, government, and funding. This was followed by advocacy, skills sharing and collaboration, and non-diluting funding.
Customers: More than half of the respondents had less than 20 customers. Businesses reflected the ability to scale into smaller and potentially niche markets as represented by the 20pc of scaling businesses with less than 50 customers.
Target market: Half of respondents identified a target market size of more then 10,000 farming enterprises.
More agtech news at www.farmonline.com.au/machinery/agtech-revolution/
Paula Thompson
Paula Thompson is ACM's National Machinery and Ag Tech writer. She has been an agricultural journalist for more than 20 years. Prior to her current role, she was a reporter with the Stock Journal, covering livestock markets and the grains industry.
Paula Thompson is ACM's National Machinery and Ag Tech writer. She has been an agricultural journalist for more than 20 years. Prior to her current role, she was a reporter with the Stock Journal, covering livestock markets and the grains industry.
