AgriFutures growᴬᴳ⋅ is the platform for Australian and global agrifood innovation. Explore research, technology, and commercialisation opportunities in one place. Connect with a diverse ecosystem including researchers, investors, and startups and discover funding avenues, list projects, and engage with over 400 organisations.

Agricultural research is vital for ensuring food security, sustainable farming practices, and rural development. AgriFutures growAG. involves collaboration between the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) and Australia’s 15 Research & Development Corporations (RDCs), collating details on the vast rural RDC investment landscape. Collation of project details on growᴬᴳ is currently a manual, keyword-based tagging system that suffers from limitations:
- Limited Semantic Understanding: Keywords often fail to capture the nuanced relationships between projects, leading to fragmented information retrieval.
- Scalability Issues: Manual tagging is time-consuming and prone to inconsistencies, hindering efficient data management as the database grows.
- Lack of Interoperability: The current system lacks the ability to seamlessly integrate with other agricultural datasets and knowledge bases.
This project proposes to develop an AI-driven solution for semantically linking agricultural research projects, enabling more accurate and comprehensive project navigation and knowledge discovery. By leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP) and knowledge graph technologies, we aim to transform the current keyword-based system into a dynamic and interconnected knowledge repository.

AIA is in active conversations with a private sector consortium. These discussions continue to validate AIA’s approach and solution design. They see clear efficiencies in bringing the RDCs’
commodity-specific carbon research and knowledge together and want to be able to include this type of carbon footprint solution in their own client service offerings.

They are concerned about growers’ lack of preparedness to respond to increasing pressures around demonstrating their carbon footprint and have confidence in a not-for-profit company
like AIA housing the solution and being trusted by growers.

There is acknowledgement that Australia is in a prime position to get this right from the start and avoid the duplication and fragmentation that other countries are now facing.

There were 13 RDCs participating in this phase, involving over 120 interviews across multiple commodities/sectors.
Insights gathered include:
• Many growers are operating mixed enterprises or are keeping that option open to manage risk into the future.
• Concerns include market access, social license, environmental impact.
• Most see a level of reporting required in the near-to-medium future, related to pressure from supply chains, finance or insurance sectors.
• They want the ability to understand and make decisions for their enterprises before regulatory or supply chain pressures intensify.
• Recognition of the need to bring all commodity calculators into one, consistent platform.

These insights speak to the growing importance of and need for the solution approach that AIA is taking.

A Discovery Insights Report, including a specific fishing and aquaculture report, was provide to FRDC in May 2023.