The F2F team are excited to announce the finalists for the 2021 Ideas Program! There were 50+ applicants from all over Australia. The quality of applications was incredible, making the panel’s job extremely difficult to pick out the top 11 teams.
The F2F Ideas Program is a 3-month program designed for primary producers who want to work out whether their business idea is worth pursuing. The program equips you to test ideas, build capability and confidence to launch new products and services and kick-start new business ventures. Read more about the Ideas Program here.
This year F2F incorporated a new feature into the design of the Ideas Program. All eligible applicants have been given the opportunity to complete an online course comprising of four modules and a series of activities. The online course gave everyone a chance to get access to foundational learning, which would help them advance their ‘idea’ regardless if they went on to secure a place in the final cohort or not. The feedback was great from those who completed the online modules, with many producers letting us know they found it very valuable.
The time has come to meet our 2021 Ideas Program cohort!
Georgina Baker, Bellingen NSW.
Georgina and her husband (who is a fourth-generation farmer) are committed to regenerative and sustainable farming practices. Having already started selling organic grass-fed beef boxes locally, they want to increase profitability by value-adding their organic beef. They have teamed up with local chef- Mitchell Grady to customise sausage & beef pattie blends free from grains, chemicals and fillers and sell direct to health-conscious consumers and wholesale to local restaurants.
Craig Bowes, Naradhan, NSW.
When Craig and his wife Dee moved onto a new farm, they needed to improve the pasture and soil health. To monitor the impact of farming practices over time, he is developing a tool to capture and analyse grazing monitoring site information. Images from monitoring points are captured by an in-situ time-lapse camera uploading automatically via hotspot Wi-Fi to a mobile app for analysis with other manually entered metadata. Craig is excited to develop his system named ‘Monitor’ and hopes it will help solve the problem for others in the industry.
Sam & Emily Fryer, Prairie QLD.
Sam and Emily are often looking for casual workers to help them on the farm. Often these employees have to live and work on the farm with the family, so they must be pre-screened. This process of finding the right employees can be time-consuming and stressful. To create a more efficient method of hiring casual workers, Sam and Emily are developing an app to match prospective workers to producers, thus providing a gateway for casual staff to find work in the rural sector.
Sam Toose, Hepburn Springs, VIC.
Sam is a passionate producer exploring unique varieties of grain to introduce into the Australian market. Sam’s idea involves Tritordeum, which is durum wheat and wild barley hybrid. Tritordeum has a unique combination of nutritional properties that make it much easier on the gut due to its type of gluten and a much higher presence of lutein which is also great for eye health. These properties make Tritordeuma a great new option for the health-conscious consumer.
Sophie Bradley, Boyne Valley QLD.
Sophie is discovering new ways to value-add Sorghum- the unsung hero of the Australian grains industry. This underutilised gluten-free grain offers a genuine alternative for cereals, providing more options for people suffering from gut health issues. Sophie is looking to create new ways growers can commercialise sorghum as a whole grain, popped sorghum, flour or a pre-cooked product.
James House, Watheroo WA.
James has seen a gap in the market and focuses on providing a cost-effective 3G rain gauge & frost sensor combination for the broadacre cropping industry. This agtech project will leverage Telstra's new low power NB-IoT network, combined with a novel use of open-source home automation software to provide an affordable 3G rain gauge & frost sensor combination with a price tag under $500.
Paul McGorman, Milendella SA.
With the Australian craft beer industry growing significantly, malt has become critical to its success. Paul’s is looking to develop the malt barley production on his Kangaroo Island farm to package it and sell it directly to craft brewers and target the home-brew market. Kangaroo Island’s clean and green brand presence paired with his regenerative farming practices makes his malt an attractive option for the craft beer connoisseur.
Lauren Bell, Cable Beach WA.
Lauren farms Black Soldier Flies for both organic waste management and production of sustainable protein for stock-feed. By providing a food waste collection service to local cafes and supermarkets, she upcycles the waste into insect protein and compost, sold to home gardeners to improve soil fertility and water retention. Lauren is the first black soldier fly producer in the north-west of WA and is looking to establish market demand and scale up production.
Chloe Darkson, O'Sullivan Beach SA.
Seaweed is an emerging superfood, and the global demand for seaweed products outstrips what is available to collect from wild stocks. Chloe and Brad’s model of on-land cultivation using pumped seawater will allow them to collect, cultivate and process the seaweed to provide end consumers with
useful, ecologically friendly seaweed products.
Scott Leslie and Samual Thompson, Euston NSW.
Scott is a shearer, and Sam, a school teacher. This duo has developed a Bluetooth Sheep Counter and App to improve agricultural productivity and record reliable data for shearers. As the industry is experiencing a decline in the numbers of shearers, the innovative app will allow shearers to record and store data and improve shearer welfare.
Gael Kennedy, Harolds Cross NSW.
Gael and her team are boutique growers of high quality, certified organic/biodynamic black truffle. Their established ‘'Elvesgate'’ brand of organic truffles are sold wholesale into restaurants around Sydney. Their idea is to value add their second-grade truffle by developing a freeze-dried product that can be enjoyed year-round by consumers and chefs wanting to extend the truffle season.
We want to thank AgriFutures, AWI, MLA, and GRDC for their continued support of Farmers2Founders and the Ideas Program. It will be exciting to see where these teams will be in 3-months time once they graduate from the program.
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