by Peter Wren-Hilton | Feb 25, 2023 | Climate Change
On Saturday, Jacqui and I spent the morning with Oli Madgett at Willunga Farmers Market in McLaren Vale. Hundreds of locals kept the 60+ stallholders busy as they displayed the local delicacies well known in this part of South Australia. Amongst the many displays, one particularly stood out. We were stoked to see a ‘Farmers for Climate Change’ stall in the middle of the market.
‘Farmers for Climate Change’ has a vision for farmers and its representatives to be climate leaders. In Australia, it has 7,000+ farmer members supporting the vision. Its mission is ‘to influence Australia to adopt strong economy-wide climate policies and realise a prosperous and sustainable future, full of opportunity for farmers and farming communities’. You can learn more about their vision & mission at www.farmersforclimateaction.org.au/what-we-do
What struck Jacqui and me as being particularly inspiring about the stall was its visibility and how it shared the farmers message around the impact of climate with an audience of end-customers. Real farmers. Real people. It’s not something we have seen before in New Zealand.
At last week’s evokeAG conference, the challenges facing AgriFoodTech & ClimateTech were closely aligned. Given the extreme weather events that have recently occurred in both Australia and New Zealand, this comes as no surprise. One unexpected surprise for me was the opportunity to catch up with Mick Liubinskas, founder of Climate Salad at the Investor Pitch Dinner last Monday evening. Mick spoke at both the Adelaide and Sydney pre-2035 Oceania Summit workshops back in May last year. As of today, Wharf42 is one of the very few kiwi members of Climate Salad.
No trip to McLaren Vale is complete without a visit to a few of its famous wineries. Oli did not let us down. Saturday afternoon was spent tasting a number of the region’s best-known wines. We learnt about some of the sustainability methods being used by local growers and the impact this was having. The good news from a New Zealand perspective, is that most of these were not new to us. Kiwi winemakers lead the world in some significant areas of sustainable production.
Following last week’s evokeAG conference and the 30 external events that supported it, we’ve had an awesome 10 days in South Australia. There are just so many similarities with New Zealand, the opportunity to collaborate is clear. Building on the successes of last week is key.
Thanks to Oli, Michael, Brad, Penny and a host of others in South Australia’s emerging AgriFoodTech ecosystem for helping make it happen. We look forward to building on that opportunity in the weeks and months ahead.
by Peter Wren-Hilton | Feb 23, 2023 | evokeAG
Jacqui and I have just completed an absolutely awesome few days at the evokeAG 2023 conference in Adelaide. Hat doffed once again to the amazing team at AgriFutures Australia for delivering an epic feast of great content, great speakers and fantastic networking!
Nothing however in today’s ‘new normal’ operates in complete isolation. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to moderate the ‘Biologicals’ workshop with three great panelists; Ben Barlow, Ethy Levy & Kioumars Ghamkhar. Several thousand miles to the east, the 2023 Salinas Biological Summit was confirming its latest speakers at exactly the same time. Like the representatives attending evokeAG from 18 different countries, the issue of biologicals and soil / plant health cuts across borders. So just who has joined our speaker list in June over the last few days?
- Cristina Rohr; Cristina is Managing Director, Food & Agriculture, S2G Ventures
- Eugenia Saini; Eugenia is FONTAGRO’s Executive Secretary, a unique sustainable co-financing mechanism for the development of agricultural technology in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Spain
- Larry Taylor; Larry is the Co-founder & Managing Partner of The Yield Lab, Asia Pacific
- Stuart Woolf; Stuart is President and CEO of Woolf Farming & Processing, and in-coming Chair, Western Growers
They join a growing cohort of great presenters who will highlight the importance of smart sustainable agriculture at a time of our changing climate and emerging global regulation around the application of chemicals to our soils and plants.
You can learn more about the 2023 Salinas Biological Summit, the draft program, more speakers, ticket sales, accommodation discounts etc. at www.salinas-summit.com. With a 2-day optional field trip to meet growers in North America’s ‘fruit bowl’ – Central Valley, it’s going to be another few days of ‘awesome’.
Final word however to evokeAG 2023. The conference provided the opportunity to once again meet in person, network and identify opportunities to collaborate. If you are looking to meet key players in California’s agrifood ecosystem and delegates from around the world, we are looking to repeat the same recipe in June. It’s a recipe that the team at Agricultures delivered this week and one we are keen to replicate again.
by Peter Wren-Hilton | Feb 6, 2023 | evokeAG
As all eyes focus on Adelaide for the evokeAG 2023 conference in less than two weeks, please let me introduce you to Ben Barlow, Kioumars Ghamkhar and Ethy Levy, the three awesome panelists on Day 2’s Biologicals workshop on Wednesday 23 February.
As the demand for nutritious and affordable food continues to rise, the need to accelerate sustainable agriculture, improve crop yields and offer protection against a wide variety of plant diseases and insect pests has never been more important. Across the globe, research and investment into biologicals continues to accelerate as consumer opinion and regulator activity begin to focus on supporting the development of chemical pesticide alternatives.
The evokeAG biological workshop panelists will provide both expert opinions and share insights into the global landscape for biological research and deployment. Meet our panelists here;
- Ben Barlow is Managing Director, New Edge Microbials. NEM is the leading Australian owned producer of scientifically developed biofertilizer, biocontrol and biostimulant products for agriculture.
- Dr Kioumars Ghamkhar is Director, Margot Forage Germplasm Centre, AgResearch NZ. Kioumars has a strong plant evolutionary biology background with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Plant Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution from University of New England, Australia and Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Australia.
- Ethy Levy is a Venture Partner with Kinneret Impact Ventures. Kinneret Impact Ventures is the first Israeli Agritech and Climatech specialized VC Fund established by the farming community in collaboration with industry and academia to target emerging Agritech, Foodtech, Watertech, and Climatech startups.
Wharf42 is delighted to bring this workshop to the evokeAG conference. In June, we are co-hosting the 2023 Salinas Biological Summit in California. This workshop will provide a direct link to June’s Summit and help position Australian and Kiwi biological researchers and start-ups with our Summit partners, Western Growers.
We very much hope you can join us in Adelaide for what will be a fascinating conversation.
The good news is that tickets for the evokeAG Conference are still on sale. To secure yours, simply sign up at Main registration site – Registration (eventsair.com)
by Peter Wren-Hilton | Jan 31, 2023 | 2023 Salinas Biological Summit
Working in partnership with the Western Growers Innovation & Technology Center, we are adding two further optional days for international delegates only to visit and meet major growers across the Central Valley.
Immediately following the Salinas Summit on 20-21 June, we’re organising a 2-day field trip, focusing on the area around Reedley in Fresno County. Known as the ‘World’s Fruit Basket’, the region is renowned for its fruit and vegetable cultivation: Stone fruit, citrus, grapes (table & wine) are just some of the staples. Last week, Dennis and I visited Harold McClarty, owner of HMC Farms just outside Reedley. Some of key fruits grown by HMC include peaches, nectarines, plums, plumcots and table grapes.
It’s an impressive unit. HMC is one of the largest adopters of solar power in the industry, with enough solar panels to generate more than 3 megawatts of renewable solar energy. The farm has donated more than 10 million pounds of fruit to the California Association of Food Banks through an ongoing relationship with the Farm to Family program. And as part of the HMC Farms commitment to using sustainable farming practices, they use pheromones instead of pesticides whenever there is an alternative available.
Harold, together with other leading growers in the region are planning to join the international delegation during the visit to talk about both their challenges and some of the opportunities that these are generating. Whilst the core theme of the Summit is biologicals, expect some frank discussions around water and automation. These are two other key focus areas for growers in Central Valley.
We are putting the final touches together for this two-day ‘field visit’. It will take in a visit to Reedley College, a community college of 7,000 students, which has a strong ag focus. With significant funding from the grower community, it has developed a number of different training programmes looking to upskill the future agricultural workforce. It’s a template that I suspect could be followed in other ag geographies.
We’ll be updating details of this additional programme on the Summit portal shortly. If you would like further information, please register your interest today at www.salinas-summit.com
by Peter Wren-Hilton | Jan 31, 2023 | 2023 Salinas Biological Summit
A major highlight of my current trip to California was the meeting with California Agriculture Secretary, Karen Ross, in Sacramento. Together with colleague, Dennis Donohue, from Western Growers, we discussed the development of the Salinas Biological Summit program and its potential impact on reducing growers’ dependency on chemical pesticides. It’s great to have the support of Secretary Ross and her team at the CDFA as we continue to build and socialise the Summit purpose.
As the demand for nutritious and affordable food continues to rise, the need to accelerate sustainable agriculture, improve crop yields and offer protection against a wide variety of plant diseases and insect pests has never been more important.
An hour after we met, Secretary Ross launched the ‘Roadmap for California; Accelerating Sustainable Pest Management’ at UC Davis. You can download the report at Accelerating Sustainable Pest Management: A Roadmap for California. Expect to learn more about this in June. It provides a very effective focal point for discussion. This is not just a California conversation. It’s rapidly becoming a global one.
During my visit, it has been agreed that Wharf42 will manage the Summit’s back-end and operational management. This is partly a legacy of October’s 2035 Oceania Summit in Auckland. We’ll also be liaising with international partners and assist with the program build. We expect to be able to publish details of the core themes, keynote speakers, accommodation options and registration details within the next 2 weeks. These will all be available at the Summit portal at www.salinas-summit.com
In discussions with a number of partners, we have been looking at Summit outcomes that can ensure that the discussions in June have long-term impact. Expect to learn more in the coming weeks. The next set of our face-to-face meetings in California will take place in March.
Before then, Wharf42 will be spending 10 days in South Australia as we attend and participate in the 2023 evokeAG conference. AgriFutures Australia and the team in Adelaide have put together a really fantastic programme of themes and speakers. It’s going to be an awesome few days!
In the meantime, to register your interest in the 2023 Salinas Biological Summit, please sign up at www.salinas-summit.com
