Vertical farming, or controlled environment agriculture, allows produce to be grown anywhere from the middle of the world’s mega cities to remote islands – or even up in space.

This technology could solve supply chain problems in a world facing an increasingly erratic climate, but as we hear in this episode, one challenge is deciding what crops to grow to make vertical farming profitable given the upfront capital costs involved.

Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence Plants for Space Matthew Gilliham from the University of Adelaide explains how the program is developing technologies like vertical farming to enable humans to survive and thrive in space – and how this can transform the sustainability of food and bioresource production on Earth.

Co-founder of InvertiGro Paul Millett talks about the company’s vertical farming ‘plug and play’, modular solutions and we hear from Perth vertical farmer Christian Prokscha.

This is the last episode for Season 3 of the AgTech Finder podcast but you can keep up to date with what’s happening in Aussie agtech by visiting www.agtechfinder.com

The use of microorganisms to improve the health and production of animals is an emerging field within the livestock industry.

In this episode, we look at the impact microbial technology and products are having in the dairy industry.

We’re joined by vet and ruminant nutritionist Dr Paul Cusack who explains how new technological advances will improve the way researchers are able to study microbes, and the impact different feed additives have on them.

We speak to Tom Bayes from Terragen, a company producing a probiotic supplement for dairy cows and calves to increase feed efficiency and milk production.

And we also talk to South Australian dairy farmer Jo Jones, who has been using Terragen’s product MYLO and has seen a reduction in herd sickness and improvement in milk quality, especially around calving.

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Artificial intelligence and machine vision is groundbreaking technology allowing for the autonomous detection of anything from weeds to livestock disease.

In this episode we speak to principal agtech scientist for the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Paul Stewart, about how challenges like connectivity are being overcome to allow for AI camera detection to be more widely adopted.

InFarm founder Jerome Leray explains how artificial intelligence technology is being applied in weed detection and cow/calf unit identification in expansive operations in northern Australia.

While, Goondiwindi cropper and beef cattle farmer Luke Arbuckle has been using the InFarm AI system to detect weeds for spot spraying and for terrain mapping.

If this discussion whets your appetite, you can hear more at the Digital Agrifood Summit 2024 in Wagga Wagga 29-30 October, exploring how AI can be harnessed for industry wide benefit. Is it time to "let it rip", or do we need to maintain control? Book your tickets now.

www.agtechfinder.com