Small tweaks, big impact: Three steps to supercharging Australia’s agritech sector
AusAgritech President, Rob Hulme has an impressive agritech resume, spanning the full spectrum of the sector in Australia and overseas. If Australia is to reach $100 billion in annual economic output by 2030, he says there are some changes we’re going to have to make.
Rob Hulme presenting at evokeAG 2025 in the session, Funding the future: Collaborative solutions for agritech growth
The Australian agricultural industry has a lofty goal of $100 billion in annual production value by 2030. At AusAgritech, we (obviously) believe agricultural technology — innovation, research, development and scale — has a critical role to play in getting us there.
Our goal is to see $30 billion of that economic output coming from agritech. But in order to optimise that opportunity, we need to rethink how we fund and scale agritech businesses, with input from every corner of the sector.
The 2024 Australian Agritech Sector Survey found 65% of agritech companies are self-funded. For software companies that figure was 79%, and for scaling companies it was 74%.
Of those self-funded or underfunded companies, 25% don’t believe they’ll be in business this time next year.
We know industry players want to support these businesses, once they’re commercially available. But without funding, founders are struggling to find the traction to bridge that gap to scalability, and to meet demand.
If we don’t find a way to effectively finance agritech, we’ll miss more than an investment opportunity. We’ll miss the chance to future-proof our food system.
RELATED: 2024 Australian Agritech Sector Report
Reimagining government funding
More than 60% of agritech businesses said government grants have been ‘essential’ to their success. So we know government funding is critical. However, we’re underutilising the role of government funding more broadly.
Governments deploy a huge amount of money primarily through tax revenue and matched grower levies into RDCs and universities. Is that the best use of grower and government money? Are we getting bang for our buck? What impact are we investing in and what problems are we solving? I believe it is time we as an industry had a more meaningful, honest conversation on the topic.
One of the major challenges our members face is not the absence of equity investors, but the absence of investors willing to lead a round.
VCs are looking for fast exits and 10x returns, while agritech, by nature, requires time and nurturing. VCs are chasing unicorns, but we’re building workhorses.
There is a world in which governments could be using sovereign capital to catalyse those investments, helping to attract more private sector funding.
They can lead the round and do all the due diligence required in order to establish a valuation, often considering additional impacts of jobs and tax revenue. Over a period of time, new investors can buy out that equity, tipping more capital back into the pot to be redeployed.
This kind of blended finance model could be self-supporting, self-sustaining and more efficient in the long term.
Connie Bowen, Founding General Partner, Farmhand Ventures and Rob presenting at evokeAG. 2025
Collaboration, with solutions at the core
Our members themselves also have a responsibility to focus not purely on the technology they’re building, but on the outcomes that can really drive adoption and impact.
We have to work with the industry to solve the problems we’re facing. The answer lies in collaboration — between stakeholders at every level and between agritech companies themselves. That includes producers, agronomists, researchers, supply chain managers, tech developers, investors, and policymakers.
By working together, businesses can help reduce overheads, and backend costs, support data driven decisions while creating solutions that solve multiple problems for the end user, thereby increasing their chances of adoption.
We know this is a tough market to crack. Many farmers and producers still aren’t using well-established technologies—not because they don’t see the value, but because they’re already stretched thin and don’t have the time or capacity to test every new product that comes their way.
That’s why we can’t just focus on developing new technology. We also need to focus on extension, adoption, and scaling what already exists. A big part of this lies in working with the trusted networks already in place—especially the strong relationships between farmers and their agronomists and advisors. If we can support these existing connections and demonstrate that technology can genuinely save growers time and money, we’ll unlock far greater uptake and impact.
Getting everyone on the same page
Finally, we need a National Strategic Plan for Agritech in Australia to shine a light on the challenges this sector is experiencing, but also the opportunities and how we can realise them.
We’re seeing lots of RDCs, State Governments and other stakeholders talking about how to optimise agritech, but no one is bringing it together into one, overarching national strategy.
At AusAgritech, we’re creating lines of communication, to get everyone on the same page in terms of focus and priorities, so we can figure out what we need to do, and how to do it together.
RELATED: Australian Agritech Ecosystem Map
Small changes with a $100 billion impact
The above changes are really just tweaks to the way the Australian agritech sector operates.
But those tweaks could have an outsized impact; they could supercharge outcomes for a broad range of technology companies, products and services, and the growers on the ground.
Without them, I can’t see how we can get to that magic $100 billion target. We certainly won’t scream past it.
We have big goals, but we can’t get there without addressing the pervasive funding challenges. We can’t get there without working together. And we can’t get there if we don’t keep the value for farmers and growers front-of-mind.
This is urgent. If 25% of agritech companies aren’t here this time next year, it will only become harder to make headway. Worse, we’ll suffer a massive loss of knowledge and opportunity.
The ecosystem is strong, and it could be even stronger. But to get there, we’re going to have to make some changes, and fast.
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