HomeEducational ResourcesSix Agtech Solutions You Can Connect Right Now

Six Agtech Solutions You Can Connect Right Now

Apr 14 2022

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With farms across Australia producing more data than ever, AgTech Finder spoke with award-winning AgTech company Pairtree about how integrating information from multiple devices in their easy-to-use dashboard can unlock the full benefit of data for farmers. Plus, they share their picks for Top Livestock Agtech Solutions currently on the market.

Farmers are often juggling data from numerous different, and previously incompatible, programs. After working on several projects with Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), NSW DPI and a number of farmers, Pairtree has overcome the issue of disconnected data to connect a broad range of agtech solutions.

“Better use of data supports more informed and reliable decision making,” says Hamish Munro (pictured above), CEO & founder of Pairtree and fifth generation farmer from Central Western NSW.

“We work across all agriculture industries, including grains and cotton, but here is a good example for graziers: Pairtree can deliver one central place, to view all of your vital information about pastures, water, weighing, weather, soil carbon and livestock management – essentially the six key elements to drive productivity for your enterprise.”

“The beauty of integrating these different solutions is that you can now visualise and compare data between them which allows for a much higher level of decision making,” adds Munro.

Six leading livestock integrations, according to Pairtree:

Cibo Labs – Monitoring pastures through satellite imagery at a paddock level allows graziers to calculate the Food on Offer (FOO) and also to create a precise paddock map with infrastructure layers.

Farmbot – Their catch-cry is ‘Know Your Water’, with over 5,000 devices across Australia, Farmbot has great connectivity solutions and easy to install tank monitors (pictured left), rain gauges, flow and pressure sensors.

Optiweigh – Accurate in-paddock weighing of cattle (soon to include sheep) makes growth rates easy to monitor, with great connectivity through satellite at cellular rates.

GoannaAg – With multiple connectivity options and a large range of sensors from weather stations, tank sensors, soil probes and many other options, provides a complete IoT offering.

FarmLab – Leading the soil carbon baselining space, through accurate soil tests and the delivery of carbon maps and more.

AgriWebb – A comprehensive mob and individual ‘Livestock Enterprise Management’ (LEM) software, allowing easy collection of your livestock records and the associated activities with the enterprise.

Munro says these six providers are experts within their fields and ensure that their services make data collection and management as easy as possible for the farmer.

Pairtree makes a full connection to the data provided through the Application Programming Interface (API) of these solutions, allowing the farmer to benefit from, then compare the data sets as they need.

“Pairtree’s role is to ‘Complement NOT Compete’, with the integrated data providers, by leveraging the data that we centralise it allows flexibility of choice for farmers to ‘bolt-together’ a solution that suits their farm/ enterprise mix,” he explains.

Pairtree can stack these data sets in several farmer friendly ways:

• Map view – where Cibo Labs and FarmLab pasture and carbon maps can be overlayed on the Paddock map, which then has the sensors providing real-time data (weather stations, tank sensors, soil probes and mob location and details).
• Centralised pages – where multiple providers’ rain or tank data can be aligned on a single page, saving multiple logins.
• Compare and trends – For Cibo Labs, Pairtree allows the comparison of multiple properties and also to review historic growth trends over the last two months.
• The Carousel option – allows a scrolling view of the headline details of each of these providers and more, allowing a screen in your office or tea-room to continually update you about your entire operation.

Pairtree recently created the Paired Collaborators Badge (PCB) which allows farmers to quickly recognise agtech companies that align their services with the “NFF voluntary farm data code” and are able to share their data with Australian agtech businesses like Pairtree.

“Being a farmer myself, I realised right from the start that if Pairtree was to succeed we needed to be at the forefront of ensuring farmers benefit from their data. Pairtree’s model is to ‘connect’ more services for farmers to build better insights, not to sell data,” says Munro.

For those who aren’t sure where to start their agtech journey, a Pairtree CORE subscription delivers the basics of hyper-local weather forecasting and historic trends, spray conditions forecasting, livestock and grains markets, basic satellite imagery and mapping.

Pairtree PLUS includes premium versions of the CORE offering, plus supports integrations with over 90 agtech companies, including the top six livestock providers named here, allowing farmers the flexibility to mix and match solutions that suit their business and budget.

Pairtree is seeking graziers who use MaiaGrazing or AgriWebb software to beta test its new Livestock Production Assurance (LPA) and Sheep & Beef Greenhouse Accounting Framework (SB-GAF) integrity and compliance tools being developed with the support of the MLA donor company.

Contact: Hamish@pairtree.co or visit their website.

Food Agility CRC, in collaboration with John Deere, National Farmers’ Federation and MinterEllison is piloting a Data Sharing Agreement Template. For more information or to be involved, register your interest today.