Published on the 17/11/2016 | Written by Newsdesk

That’s according to Precision Agriculture Association New Zealand (PAANZ) chair Craige Mackenzie, who said in statement “Technology has major potential to support higher productivity and more sustainable use of natural resources in farming.”

While farming is a mature industry (after all, food has been grown more or less ever since people have been eating it), it is ripe for the introduction of information technology to further drive productivity and performance. The returns anticipated for farming are already respectable, with a compound annual growth rate of 4 percent according to NZTech, which will take the roughly $1.2 billion of agritech exports in 2013 up to the expected figure of $6.4 billion in a decade’s time.

Mackenzie praised Government’s introduction of a new technical advisory group to advise the Ministry of Primary Industries on how to accelerate the use of smart agriculture technology. Much of that comes down to the use of Internet of Things sensors and the platforms which stand behind them:

“Many New Zealand farmers are increasingly using soil moisture sensors to fine-tune irrigation, sensors to monitor animal health and fertility, and determining the perfect time to harvest fruit and crops. Farmers up and down the country are wholeheartedly embracing smart use of precision agriculture,” he said.

While Mackenzie drew attention to the role of the UFB network rollout and the Rural Broadband Initiative, the introduction of IoT-specific low-power networks such as SigFox and LoraWAN provides a further, if less high-profile, boost to the ability for farmers to more widely deploy sensing technology across their operations.

Mackenzie added that New Zealand’s rural areas drive the country’s largest industry, primary production. “New Zealand’s reputation as a world-leading provider of agricultural technology solutions continues to grow and connectivity is the heart of this technological progress,” he said.

“Reigniting primary productivity in the rural sector is critical for both farmer profitability and New Zealand’s global competitiveness. Digital agriculture, in the form of precision farming, big data, sensor technology and drones, delivers a new potential for productivity gains across rural New Zealand.”

Mackenzie noted that global agritech investment is growing rapidly, with investment in 2014 estimated at more than US$2.36 billion – bigger than the global fintech market. “With our traditional strengths in agriculture and our growing strengths in tech this is an opportunity we should pursue with vigour. There is an enormous opportunity for New Zealand to use technology to support the economic growth of our agri sector and to also work with the sector to become a world leader in agritech.”