FOUNDERS2FOLLOW · A FARMERS2FOUNDERS PORTFOLIO SPOTLIGHT Carina Steinbakk on handwriting vehicle hygiene certificates in a Queensland gas field, the gap between ‘said it was clean’ and ‘proved it was clean’, and building CertMate to close it. A ute pulls up to a gate. Somebody hands over a certificate saying the vehicle was washed down. The gate opens. That piece of paper is doing an enormous amount of work. It's standing between a clean property and a weed outbreak, betwee

FOUNDERS2FOLLOW · A FARMERS2FOUNDERS PORTFOLIO SPOTLIGHT Jorge Fernandez-Galarreta on building Margins, the company helping global agriculture companies discover and manage their future production regions. Somewhere in the world right now, a fruit company is deciding where to put a new variety. Not a small decision: quarantine, nursery stock, grafting, years of waiting, and often millions of euros committed before a single piece of fruit reaches a shelf. And a surprising am

Building what comes next: AI, robotics and the future of food systems There’s a particular kind of builder who sits at the edge of what’s next. Not chasing noise, but focused on how things actually work. How systems connect. How ideas become real Amanda Ducrou is one of those people. With a background spanning a PhD in health informatics, four years at Amazon in Seattle, and over a decade at Expedia Group where she moved from software engineer through to principal architect,

For Dr Hima Haridevan, agrifood innovation doesn’t begin with a startup idea or a pitch deck. It begins in the lab, with materials, systems, and a fundamental question that many researchers quietly wrestle with: how does this work beyond controlled conditions? Based at the University of Queensland, Hima is a translational materials scientist specialising in making bio-based materials more accessible and cost-effective for sustainable living. As co-founder of EcoSprout, she is

How Farmers2Founders helped Irish agtech company MagrowTec navigate the path from global technology leader to locally grounded Australian business, and why the opportunity for grain growers is only just beginning. A Global Problem That Lands on Every Farm Every time a spray boom rolls across a paddock, a significant portion of the chemicals applied never reach their target – drift carries them off-site, run-off washes them away. Conventional spraying technology, largely uncha

How a daughter's determination to honour her father's life work is reshaping the way inputs reach Australian grain crops — and why the industry is paying close attention. There is a particular kind of founder story that begins not in a co-working space or a university incubator, but at a kitchen table, listening to a parent talk about a problem they had spent a career trying to solve. For Caecilia Potter, CEO and Commercial Founder of VensoGrow, the origin of BreezeCoat™ is i

For many grain growers, nitrogen strategy remains one of the most significant cost and risk decisions made each season. Input price volatility, seasonal variability and long-term soil performance all influence productivity and margin outcomes across broadacre systems. Mr PlantMac was founded by Iain Macpherson with a clear objective: support sustainable agriculture through innovative plant growth stimulants designed to reduce reliance on traditional chemical fertilisers such

A new crop of farm innovators will be given a boost to test and scale their agri-tech across Australia and New Zealand as the Land x Launch™ ANZ program opens applications for 2026.

The search is on for global innovators ready to validate and scale their agri-tech for the broadacre grains industry as the Land x Launch™ AU program opens applications for 2026.

Crop cooling spray and a saliva test to breed worm-resistant sheep were the agri-tech solutions that claimed top honours at the Farmers2Founders’ International Agrifood-Tech Pitch Challenge this week.