Our one on one with AgriFutures Australia's driving force - John Harvey

And there's little doubt that the man charged by Barnaby Joyce to decentralise the Research and Development Corporation from Canberra to Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, seven years ago, AgriFutures managing director John Harvey, has had a lot to do with the organisation's successful evolution.

Now arguably best known for the increasingly popular evokeAG agrifood tech event, Mr Harvey said AgriFutures' would continue to go where the energy flows.

He said it was this philosophy which led to Perth being chosen as the event's 2024 host.

In his chat with Farm Weekly journalist BREE SWIFT, Mr Harvey offers some advice to those start-ups in the agrifood tech space and confirms there are many investment opportunities out there if you have the right support network, the right idea and you are willing to take a flexible approach.

QUESTION: Can you tell me about your upbringing?

ANSWER: I was born in Sydney and my mother's side of the family was from a dairy farming property at Byron Bay and all of our holidays were on the dairy farm.It was close to the beach and in a beautiful location, so it's not surprising all of my brothers and I ended up involved in agriculture somehow.

My own three boys are now all grown up and one of them, Tom, has a very successful career in agribusiness banking.

Q: What did you want to be when you were younger?

A: I always wanted to be a farmer. When I was about seven-years-old my mother sent me to her brother's farm up in the Tablelands (NSW) for about six weeks because she knew I was interested in farming.

It wasn't until I got to high school that I found an interest in science and innovation, so it was a natural link to do a degree in rural science.

Q: You studied a bachelor of rural science, agriculture, degree in 1984 at the University of New England and completed your post-graduate diploma in resource engineering in 1987.

What made you decide to study resource engineering after your initial start in agriculture?

A: The resource engineering was a bit of a detour and I've never really used it.

The first job I got out of university was as a soil conservationist with the Queensland Department of Primary Industries (DPI).

My boss at DPI said I needed to do a post grad - so I looked at the list of options and resource engineering sounded interesting, so I did that.

Q: What was your experience like at the Queensland Department of Primary Industries?

A: That early experience has stayed with me my whole career.

In terms of a foundation for my career early on, that job was very much onfarm.

I got to understand how farmers think, some of the complexities of the businesses they operate and it gave me an incredible respect for farmers and how they go about things.

Q: You spent 19 years at the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), starting out as a farming systems program manager then went on to become part of GRDC's executive team, first as program operations manager then varieties manager before becoming GRDC's chief executive and managing director from 2011-2016.

What are some of your observations about the grains sector and how it has evolved?

A: The grains industry is a fabulous industry and one which has embraced innovation in a huge way.

When I started my career in Queensland in the mid-1980s, farmers were still ploughing paddocks three, four and five times - maybe even more - before they planted a crop.

To see the transformation to no-till was incredible and then there's been the focus on crop genetics and breeding better varieties.

Now we're in the digital age of automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning, so precision farming will potentially take us to the next step.

It is the most exciting industry to have been involved in.

To see the increase in water use efficiency that has occurred right across the country in grains, but particularly in Western Australia, and it's reflected in the size of the crop.

It's a phenomenal credit to the ability of farmers to actually be able to integrate all the different bits of technology on their farms and really make it work.

Q: From your tenure as GRDC's managing director what achievement are you most proud of?

A: The consolidation and commercialisation of the wheat breeding programs, such as InterGrain and Australian Grain Technologies (AGT) and seeing those evolve from crazy ideas to really substantial, successful companies.I certainly don't take the credit for that, but being there while it was happening was very exciting.

Q: In 2016 you were appointed the managing director of AgriFutures Australia, one of 15 research and development corporations (RDCs) that service the research, development and extension needs of 13 rural industries.

What led you to this role?

A: Back then it was called Rural Industries Research Development Corporation (RIRDC) and it had been around for 30 years.

When I first took the job, I was based in Canberra and my first challenge was to relocate the organisation from Canberra to Wagga Wagga as part of Barnaby Joyce's decentralisation policy.

That opportunity was probably the reason why I accepted the job - because I knew the largely public-service based people in the organisation were great people who were doing a fantastic job, but their careers were very much interwoven into the department and it was going to be very difficult for them to relocate.

It was an opportunity to reset and refresh the RIRDC and take another approach on what the organisation could be.

We recruited from the private sector as there was no public service to recruit from, so that gave the organisation a much more commercial skillset.

When we got out to Wagga Wagga it was very clear that we needed to tell our customers and stakeholders we were different, because otherwise there would be a disconnect from what they were expecting and what we were.

That's why we rebranded, renamed and repositioned the organisation.

We've tried to reposition it as - even in the name - to what is the future of agriculture, what are the things coming and how do we take the industry forward?

We have a very young team - the average age is about 28-35 years - but then there are a few of us oldies who really pull up the average.

About 80 per cent of our staff are female and the organisation has a great energy about it.

Q: AgriFutures services a range of levied industries including chicken meat, rice, honey bee and pollination, ginger, tea tree oil, pasture seeds, export fodder, thoroughbred horses, kangaroo, buffalo, deer, goat fibre and ratite.

While these industries are quite diverse, have you found they face common challenges?

A: Each industry has its different challenges.Up until joining AgriFutures my whole career had been in the grains industry.

But within AgriFutures we have 13 levied industries we look after, we've invested in about another 40 emerging industries and we also invest in issues that go across the whole of agriculture like agrifood tech.

There is a lot of commonality in terms of the challenges all of these industries are facing and innovation and technology play a role in all of them.

In terms of worker shortages, we've recently done a survey of the community in the city and in a stratified random sample we found a couple of interesting things; about 40pc of people involved in agriculture live in the city and, if a person in the city has a good relationship with another person involved in agriculture, they're twice as likely to have a career in agriculture.

Throughout my career it's always been said that we need to keep the kids from the bush in the bush.

I think that's still very appropriate - but what about the other 96pc of the population that lives in the city?

How do we excite them about the opportunities and possibilities in agriculture?

For the people in the city - they want a purposeful career, they want variety, they want to make a difference, they are concerned about the environment and they are concerned about having work.

You add that all up and it's a no brainer - they should be involved in agriculture, but we've really got to sell that message.

We have to get out there and start positioning agriculture as a young, exciting place to be - like the mining and defence industries have done.

Q: AgriFutures is also helping to drive the growth and development of Australia's sesame, industrial hemp and seaweed industries.

Which of these emerging industries do you think has the most potential to become a significant contributor to Australia's economy?

A: They all have the potential to become levied industries.

When you look at hemp, that potentially has a role to play in terms of Australia moving towards carbon neutral, which is interesting.Hazelnuts are also fascinating because they are out of season for the main production which occurs in Turkey, so you have a quality advantage for hazelnuts grown in Australia.

On one of our trips to Israel we identified a start-up that has bred shatterproof sesame and that totally changes the whole dynamics of growing sesame in Australia.It's been tried 20-30 years ago, but you could never harvest the damn stuff because it would shatter and drop its seed on the ground before you had time to harvest it.

But these shatterproof ones will allow you to harvest reliably, so there could be a really interesting industry there.If you go back to the 1990s canola was a new crop - and now look at that industry today - it's huge, so there are big opportunities.

Q: The AgriFutures Rural Women's Award has continued to increase in popularity.

Have any of the award winners stood out to you and why?

A: Your very minister, Jackie Jarvis, in 2014 was a winner of the WA Rural Women's Award and a runner-up at the nationals, so she's obviously done very well since.

The whole concept is to give these amazing women a platform, and that's exactly what it does.

But it's also really exhilarating to see where they go and what they do.

Jackie becoming a minister shows what is possible.

The role model aspect is critical - we want the younger generation to be looking at these women and saying, 'if they can do it, I can do it'.

We've had a lot more applicants in the past few years as well.When we run the gala event in Parliament House in Canberra there are 550 people in the room - it's an amazing atmosphere, and you can't walk out without feeling inspired.

Q: AgriFutures evokeAG. is Asia Pacific's agrifood tech event and network which attracts investment in agricultural technologies and helps connect agrifood tech with farmers and producers.

How many successful connections would you estimate the organisation has helped foster between start-ups and investors?

A: It would have to be in the thousands.

The relationships between start-ups and investor are hard to track, but I remember the first time we ran it there were six or seven start-ups, and when I spoke to them they were all trying to raise $1-2 million, and then the second time we ran the event in 2020 they were all doing their second capital raise of $7-15m.

That was really exciting, anecdotally, to see how rapidly they were growing and capturing investment.

We have now expanded onto our growerAG platform, which start-ups, researchers and corporates can all put their commercial opportunities on.

The platform has 100,000 users.So we hold evokeAG two days of the year, and for 365 days of the year we have the growerAG platform that connects people.

If you do respond to an opportunity on the platform you'll get a call from one of our staff where they'll ask you what exactly you're looking for and if they can help you.

Q: Would you say there are more ideas than investors or more investors than ideas?

A: We've learnt through evokeAG that the constraint isn't capital.

There's money out there but you've got to have a good idea, have a good business plan and credibility as a founder, because the investors are investing in the people and the belief they can deliver the idea, as much as the idea itself.Those are the really key ingredients - and if you get those right the money will flow.

Q: What would be the top investing country/countries for agrifood tech in Australia?

A: Globally, about 50pc of the investment comes from the United States and about half of that investment comes from San Francisco.

It took us a while to get Australia's agrifood tech ecosystem firing.

One of the constraints when we first started out back in 2019 was we didn't have any homegrown, venture capital funds investing in agrifood tech.

But we do now - we have a number of them.I can't express how important that is.

When you've got a local, credible venture capital fund who knows the start-ups - they only need to invest 10 or 15pc.

That creates confidence for international investors who then say, 'if you're investing in that start-up and you are overseeing the investment, then we will put silent capital beside it'.

It's very powerful and important that we have these homegrown, venture capital funds, which have really only come about in the past three years.

Q: Any advice for people looking to, or in the process of, creating their own start-up?

A: The challenge for any start-up is to identify a real pain point and a real problem that needs solving.

Surround yourself with a strong support network of other start-ups, mentors, advocates and people who have been there before you.

Your network is going to be as important as your idea, so build it well.

Make sure you have the right technology and be willing to be flexible and pivot if it's not right.

Don't expect it to work the first time and that your first idea is going to be the blockbuster unicorn - it won't be.

Q: Why was Perth chosen as the host for evokeAG 2024?

A: We were going to come here in 2020 and we postponed the event.

Then we were going to come to Perth in 2021 and we cancelled it.

Because we had that big gap, quite frankly, we weren't quite confident to have two years off and then turn up in Perth because most of our audience was still on the eastern seaboard at that stage.

We announced evokeAG 2024 would be held in Melbourne in February at the Adelaide event, but when the board discussed it afterwards, it became really clear that going back to Melbourne would be going backwards.

The venue wasn't big enough and we'd been there twice before.

At evokeAG in Adelaide we also realised that we are just a tiny player that provides a platform and it's the community which really drives the event and makes it work.In Adelaide we had 30 organic events emerge around evokeAG without us having to do anything and we knew that sort of energy was here in Perth.

We were lobbied by people in Perth like you wouldn't believe and, ultimately, we knew we were better off to go with where the energy is - and that energy is here in Perth.

I like to describe it as 'AgriFutures acupuncture'.

READ MORE:

You can do one thing really well, like evokeAG, and the energy you create from that is how you will have an impact, beyond what you could ever do on your own.

Q: What is a goal you have for the organisation over the next 12 months?

A: The biggest challenge we have at the moment is the workforce and getting enough people to see the opportunities there are in agriculture and that it is a great place to have a career.

I'm keen to see what we can do to reposition agriculture in the eyes of young people, particularly in the city.

For evokeAG, we very consciously try to create an image that is aligned with the values of the very purpose-driven generation coming through.

Q: What's your favourite aspect of your role with AgriFutures?

A: It's a lovely platform to make a difference and deal with issues that are important to the whole of agriculture.

I've been really blessed to have a board that's been willing to take some bold steps, calculated risks and to have a go.

We know something may fail, but if it does we will learn together and move on, so it's OK.It's incredibly precious to have the support of our directors and their willingness to try something new.

When we did evokeAG for the first time it was a huge risk and we didn't know if it was going to work, but it made a difference.

Q: What are some of your hobbies outside of work?

A: Growing up I played the violin right through my school years and played with the Sydney Youth Orchestra for about five years.

Then I gave it a big miss and swerve, but as I get older I do have a passion for listening to music.

I still have my violin.My staff give me a hard time because I have a very flash stereo system and I spend a lot of time searching for new pieces of music.