Growing farm vision
Ingenuity on show at Agfest
TASMANIAN ingenuity, including the game-changing software of a Launcestonbased entrepreneur, has been on display at Agfest.
Chief executive Fiona Turner describes Bitwise Agronomy as an artificial intelligence company that serves the agriculture sector.
Ms Turner said it was developed after she and her husband purchased a vineyard in Tasmania and wanted a way to have visibility of their crops and share information with advisers.
GoPro cameras are attached to farm machinery, collecting footage as they work down the rows, which is uploaded to a portal.
“We’ve taught computers to see like humans so when we run the video through we can count on mass, scout for things and give actionable insight to our customer based
on the data they have she said.
Ms Turner said it leads to reduced wastage and reduced operational costs.
“Everything we do in the reports we give is row by row, so they can do things like targeted picking,” she said.
She said that while they initially thought it would be just for counting and forecasting, it has also had alternative uses, including helping to identify early issues with the drip-and-drain system at some strawberry farms.
With its first paying customer
collected,”
in March last year, the company’s software is now used on 30 sites as far afield as South America, with another 30 in trial stages.
“We are very much in the growth stage, we hope to have
200 paid farmers in the next 18 months,” Ms Turner said.
A total of 40,000 people, young and old, will have attended Agfest when it wraps up at the end of Saturday.
Louisa Fielding was one of
those who travelled to Quercus Park, Carrick, for the event as part of a group visiting from Penguin District School.
Agfest in the cloud runs from Saturday through to May 15.