Yield by Artesian: Aligning Capital, Capability and Innovation for Australia’s Agrifood Future
- ArtesianVC
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Last week in Melbourne, Artesian hosted the inaugural Yield agrifood innovation summit — a working forum designed to bridge capital, research, and on-farm adoption across Australia’s agricultural ecosystem. Over two days, more than 80 leaders from RDCs, DAFF, corporates, growers, universities, startups and investors joined for open, practical and future-focused discussions about the opportunities and challenges shaping Australian agriculture.
From the outset, the mission of Yield was clear: it was not designed as another AgTech showcase, but as a convening of the institutions and innovators who collectively determine the trajectory of Australian agrifood systems. The summit surfaced real pressure points, highlighted promising frontier technologies, and strengthened alignment across the ecosystem so that innovation can move from concept to commercial impact more effectively.
AI’s Shift from Buzzword to Enabler
AI emerged as a central theme, not in its hype-driven form, but in its rapidly maturing, practical deployment. In his keynote, Dawid Naude highlighted how AI is now delivering real on-farm value across decision support, yield optimisation, labour efficiency, predictive modelling and risk mitigation.
Participants also stressed the strategic importance of using agriculture as a proving ground for sovereign AI capability - building domestic excellence in data infrastructure, model development and applied deployment with spillover benefits that extend well beyond farming.
Startup panel included: Katonic AI, Traits Insights
Biologicals over Chemicals: Strong Appetite, Conditional on Repeatable Performance
In a session key-noted by Ian Godwin (University of Queensland), growers, corporates and RDCs echoed a consistent message: biologicals represent a major opportunity, but adoption depends entirely on reliable, repeatable field performance. Demand is strong, but claims must be validated under commercial farm conditions. This point set the tone for broader conversations about trial design, performance proof points and de-risking early adoption.
Field Trials and Shared Risk
A recurring theme across sessions was the critical importance of field trials and shared-risk models. Leaders including Andrew Slatter (Viridis Ag) and Angus Blair (Lawson Grains) emphasised that early-stage companies cannot be expected to carry the full burden of financial and operational risk. Encouragingly, there is growing willingness from large growers and corporates to co-fund trials, share upside and downside, and create accessible validation pathways that accelerate adoption.
Robotics: A Rapidly Expanding Frontier
The robotics and automation session showed how quickly the field is diversifying. Innovators from agriculture, mining, defence and industrial automation presented new sensing, inspection, autonomous operation and logistics solutions. What stood out was the accelerating cross-sector flow of technology: tools born in mining or manufacturing are now being adapted for the paddock, enabling step-changes in productivity and labour efficiency.
Startup panel included: Agovor, Andromeda, Verbotics, Imitation Machines, Lyro
Agri-Energy and the Future of Farmland
Discussions on agri-energy reinforced how central farmland will be to Australia’s energy transition. With increasing demands for carbon projects, renewable integration and bio-energy, growers are navigating new trade-offs between food, fibre and fuel. Participants emphasised the need for models that protect grower economics, strengthen regional resilience, and ensure that energy initiatives complement agricultural production rather than crowd it out.
Startup panel included: PlasmaLeap, Wildfire Energy, Hydgene
Biosecurity: The Cost of Standing Still
Biosecurity remains one of the highest-stakes areas for innovation. Speakers highlighted the real economic, trade and productivity risks of failing to advance detection, surveillance and rapid-response capabilities. New pathways in remote sensing, diagnostics and predictive modelling are emerging, but the pace of innovation must accelerate to stay ahead of evolving threats.
Innovation from Unexpected Places
Across all sessions, a consistent insight emerged: many of the most transformative agricultural innovations are originating outside the agricultural sector. Frontier developments in AI, robotics, energy systems and industrial automation can be adapted to solve on-farm challenges when supported by coordinated growers, industry partners, researchers and investors. This cross-sector translation is becoming one of the most powerful levers for agricultural progress.
A Shared Mission - and Australia’s Strategic Advantage
Yield reinforced that Australia’s agrifood competitiveness depends on an innovation system built on two complementary pillars: traditional RD&E and distributed, startup-driven R&D. Traditional RD&E brings scientific depth, rigour and long-cycle capability. Distributed innovation brings speed, adaptability and frontier technologies. When isolated, each system has natural limitations. When connected, they form a resilient, scalable pathway from discovery to commercial impact.
This is where Australia’s Rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs) provide a unique competitive edge. The RDC model gives Australia an innovation infrastructure unmatched globally: long-term, stable funding coupled with deep industry participation and a mandate aligned with real grower needs. Their strength lies not only in advancing foundational science, but in enabling collaboration across institutions and ensuring that early-stage technologies are grounded in practical industry relevance.
Crucially, the impact of RDCs is amplified when their traditional RD&E efforts are extended into distributed R&D through partnership with startup investors. By working alongside investors like Artesian, RDCs help distribute risk across more approaches, accelerate grower and producer feedback loops, and create clearer commercial pathways for emerging technologies. This blended model widens the innovation funnel and ensures that promising technologies do not stall between research and real-world adoption on farms and in supply chains.
Equally important is the role of agrifood corporates, who bring later-stage strategic capital, deep operational capability, and commercial pathways that early-stage innovation cannot access alone. Strategic corporates provide scale, distribution networks, data, validation environments, and real operating challenges that sharpen product–market fit. Combined with adoption and insight from world-class growers and producers, their involvement ensures that technologies proven in early trials can scale across the broader agricultural landscape and deliver meaningful economic impact.
For Artesian, the summit sharpened our view on where innovation capacity needs to grow, how to build more coordinated models across research, startups and industry, and how capital can flow more effectively through the entire pipeline. Our mission remains to identify, support and scale technologies that strengthen Australia’s agrifood systems and deliver measurable gains in productivity, sustainability and resilience.
We are grateful to every organisation and leader who joined us at the inaugural Yield summit. The discussions were energising, candid and forward-looking — and they mark the beginning of an ongoing effort to help the ecosystem move from ideas to adoption.
Investor panel included: Hort Innovation, GRDC, Graincorp, Agnition Ventures, Breakthrough Victoria
With RDCs anchoring early-stage capability, startup investors expanding distributed R&D, and corporates like GrainCorp providing later-stage strategic capital and commercial pathways, Australia is uniquely positioned to build an agrifood innovation system that leads globally.
