Episode 29: Will MacSmith

Episode 29: Will MacSmith

Will MacSmith is a farmer from Manildra in Central West New South Wales.

Will and his business partner Hamish are trying to develop a system to realise profit margins for sheep through the collection of real time data of feed efficiency and conversion for individuals rather than the mob.

They're doing this through trial and error in confinement and feedlotting on Will's family farm where he's been living and working for the last 10 years. Over a period of two years they have been building a facility, using microcontrollers, that measures individual feed intake and live weight at the same time, in real time.

"Every time the animal leaves the stall where they feed from that piece of information gets sent to the cloud and allocated against that individual animal's tag number," says Will.

"We had sheep in the feedlot and we would have varying levels of performance and we found that using growth rates as an indicator for performance was a bit flawed, and doesn't really tell you much about feeding efficiency and cost efficiency."

It's about finding better ways to feed, and better varieties of feed and also looking at the effects of environmental factors such as shearing or heat or lack of water and measuring that against cost benefits and of course they also consider genetics. Will also says similar systems that are already available on the market are cost prohibitive for most farmers.

"At this stage in Australia we can't really get around the cost of labour for the construction of individual stalls on a large scale. At the moment the question probably is, 'would it be cheaper to build it overseas."

Will is working with feed companies interested in comparing and monitoring their feed products and he says there is a lot of interesting coming for sire evaluation and the genetics side of the industry as well.

In this podcast, will also speaks about pushing the Ag industry in Australia forward, and the challenges of ageing demographic in farming.

Will is new to Twitter and so the best place to contact him or his business partner Hamish is via email

william@crownagriculture.com.au

hamish@crownagriculture.com.au

Avsnitt(194)

Episode 22 - Kevin Heikes With Perspectives On Agtech From Over 20 Years In The Space

Episode 22 - Kevin Heikes With Perspectives On Agtech From Over 20 Years In The Space

Kevin Heikes was part of agtech before it was agtech. He's been involved in four different agtech startups, including his latest venture, In10t. In this episode, we dig into his perspectives on agtech from over 20 years in the space, including: Hard earned lessons from 4 agtech startups, and what it feels like to have a farmer customer call to say you've made their life better with your product The importance of tech companies partnering with farmers Why having an ag background matters in agtech What farmers are looking for when they agree to trial a new product (e.g., with FarmerTrial.com), and why trials are so tough for venture-backed companies Just how hard it is to balance working ON the business and IN the business

23 Maj 201836min

Episode 21 - Seana Day On What's Hot In Livestock And Dairy Tech

Episode 21 - Seana Day On What's Hot In Livestock And Dairy Tech

Seana Day brings a diverse background in agriculture, finance, and technology to the agtech sector where she is a Partner at  BEtter Food Ventures. Seana also tracks nearly 1,500 agtech companies in her "Market Maps" through her role as Partner at The Mixing Bowl. Seana's background gives her a unique and valuable perspective on the evolution of the agtech sector, and what the future holds. In this episode, we discuss: how more and more growers are adopting a digital strategy, and what it means for agtech entrepreneurs and investors whether the specialty crop market is behind or ahead in terms of tech adoption, and why silicon valley vs. agtech ecosystems around the world the fundamentals that agtech VCs look for when making investments, and when VC might not be a good fit what it's like to be raising a $30M venture capital fund for agtech what farmers are looking for (and not) in the livestock and dairy sectors

16 Maj 201833min

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