Agritech is providing alternatives to traditional farming methods. These innovations can increase productivity gains, help maximise profitability for the primary sector and help solve problems from labour shortages to sustainability. Adoption of technology by end users underpins every agritech business’ existence.

While great work which has been completed within subsectors of the Primary Industry or by companies with their end users, there is a lack of visibility of the relative adoption rates of technology, how these changes over time and, importantly, what can be done to drive uptake

AgriTechNZ, with the support of MPI as part of the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures Initiative, and in association with key industry partners (Zespri, FAR, Fertiliser Association of NZ, and DairyNZ), have commenced a longitudinal study focused on resolving these issues.

Research First is the delivery partner for this project and a focus on co-creation with the industry partners has been fundamental to its success. For the baseline study we used a multi-method approach that combined a large-scale survey of over 1,000 farmers and growers with follow up in-depth interviews and focus groups with 50 participants. The qualitative research took place across 10 regions of the country with the majority of interviews taking place on the participants’ farms and orchards.

The project expels the easy stereotypes about the adoption of technology, understands the realities of digital adoption across primary industries and provide the insights to accelerate the rate of adoption. It supports existing sub-sector research whilst enabling partners to leverage insights into their digital road maps and outreach programmes.

Download the report here