Sarah Hindle from Tech Futures Lab. Photo / Supplied
Sarah Hindle from Tech Futures Lab. Photo / Supplied
Changes being driven by computer scientists in the agri-food sector are providing new opportunities for the country's farmers.
The disruption, which is changing what we eat, was the focus of the keynote speech at the AGMARDT NZ Young Farmers Conference.
"There's a restaurant in Boston with a robotic kitchen," JuliaJones from KPMG told the audience in Christchurch.
Spyce is a world-first and was created by four robotics-obsessed engineers who wanted "healthy food at a reasonable price".
Customers order using a touchscreen, then robots do the rest. Ingredients are dropped into a row of rotating woks, which cook meals in under three minutes.
The world's food system is worth US$8 trillion. New Zealand earns $40 billion annually from the food it exports.
"We have a big advantage on the world stage because we can produce artisan, niche products and demand a higher price," said Jones.
The audience heard deer milk produced by Pāmu (formerly Landcorp) is being made into ice creams and other desserts by chefs in upmarket restaurants in Auckland and Wellington.
Julia Jones believes the opportunities to expand New Zealand's ocean-farmed salmon industry are immense.
"I recently visited one of New Zealand King Salmon's farms in the Marlborough Sounds. There were 33,000 fish in one pen. It's amazing," she said.
NZ Young Farmers members were urged to understand consumers and find out what they are willing to pay a premium for.
"If you travel overseas, go into an expensive-looking supermarket and see what sort of food is on the shelves," said Jones.
"I went to a supermarket in California last year and they had a crazy big fridge with a sign on it that said grass-fed milk."
The world's population is projected to reach about 10 billion people by 2050.
"That's a huge jump in terms of calories that we need to produce to feed all of those people," Sarah Hindle from the Tech Futures Lab told the conference.
