Entrepreneurs and investors took part in an event organised by Enterprise Ireland and opened by Minister for Trade and Employment Pat Breen at the SPACE livestock show in Rennes, France.

They discussed the practical implications of the tech revolution for farmers as well as challenges such as poor connectivity in rural areas.

While companies including herd management app Herdwatch and smart plate metre manufacturer Grasshopper design products that can work offline in the fields until the farmer gets home to an internet connection, Kieran Furlong of the US-based venture capital firm Finistere said he was in contact with an Irish company developing radio signals with a 200m range capable of connecting several buildings in a farm yard. Finistere is managing new Irish-based ag tech investment funds including €40m in State funding.

Listen to a discussion with entrepreneurs Fabien Peyaud of Herdwatch and Paolin Pascot of Agriconomie.com (pictured above) in our podcast below:

Michael Delany of Wicklow-based water purification specialist H2Ozone said improving connectivity could make a big difference in managing the poultry drinking systems he supplies. “Many farmers work alone and more and more farming is unmanned,” he said, stressing the need for autonomous and remote-controlled technologies.

Data for the greater good

The discussion also covered the ownership of data gathered from connected farms and its use to benefit the wider industry.

Jean-Baptiste Cuisinier of the French venture capital fund CapAgro said that a debate had been raging on in France about which trusted third party could act as the guardian of this massive information stream and return useful analysis and benchmarking services to farmers. While the Government and the leading farming bank Crédit Agricole have offered to play that role, “not everyone trusts the Government, and do you really want your banker to access all the technical data from your farm?” Cuisinier said.

In Ireland, Sean Stack of Dairymaster and Patrick Halton of Grasshopper both said their companies shared anonymised data with Teagasc for research purposes, pointing to a possible role for the agency in this area.

”Very few investment funds exist in this sector”

Cuisinier said that the investors channelling money into ag tech start-ups through his firm ranged from financial institutions to co-ops, food processors and Government bodies. “Very few investment funds exist in this sector,” he said. He added that CapAgro had grown from €37m under management when it started in 2014 to a target of €120m in the coming months.

Some of the start-ups funded by venture capital now will in time join larger industrial groups, such as diet feeder manufacturer Keenan, which was taken over by anima nutrition giant Alltech last year. “To start making money from the digital side of the business – the data – you need the global footprint of a large group,” said Keenan’s chief executive Robert Walker.

Read more this Thursday in the Irish Farmers Journal.