Zetifi is excited to have joined the recently established Australian AgriTech Association which aims to foster new connections amongst farmers, investors and innovators and cement Australia’s position as a world-class agritech ecosystem.
Technology partnerships with farmers and companies such as Case IH and AuctionsPlus have already played an important role in Zetifi’s development and as CEO & Founder Dan Winson explains, providing a connectivity platform that enables farmers to embrace digital agritech applications is central to the company’s identity and mission.
“Zetifi was founded on the realisation that farmers were poorly served by traditional telecommunications technologies – plenty of people were developing digital solutions for farmers but not nearly as many trying to solve the connectivity issues that were preventing them from adopting this technology in the first place,” said Dan
“We’re based in regional Australia so having easy access to farmers has meant we’ve been able to speak with them directly and develop solutions that are specifically suited to this environment.
Whilst some of the innovations have required developing custom software to make installation and support possible in remote locations, some of the most important lessons have been the most basic, as Product Development Manager John Lucas explains.
“What farmers actually want is pretty simple – connectivity that’s resilient, is available where they’re working, and won’t give up on them because of some dust or mud. That’s what we set about building, and we’re now confident that our suite of products can meet these needs in most environments.”
Zetifi is unique among association members in that as well as serving farmers, it’s also providing better internet solutions for the home but Paul believes that the number of farmers needing a solution to implement an agtech application is set to increase in the years ahead.
“Not everyone that contacts Zetifi is thinking about agritech but we know that a lot of them are. Some of our calls come from people that just want better internet for home schooling or entertainment but over 40% of our customers tell us that they’re using our networks for on-farm digital technology,” said Paul.
“We fully expect this number to increase in the years to come as farmers continue to embrace new agtech solutions and things like autonomous vehicles that are being developed right here by companies like SwarmFarm become a regular sight in the paddock.”
To find out more about the work of the Australian AgriTech Association, please visit ausagritech.org or follow them via their social channels on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
