Investors back AgriWebb
Digital livestock management data service AgriWebb has won $30 million in funding support from listed Canadian telecommunications company Tellus, which launched its own Tellus Agriculture division in November.
The Australian farmer-built company, established about seven years ago, has also secured a $5m from the federal government's Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
The CEFC Clean Energy Innovation Fund investment will enable AgriWebb to develop tools to track methane emissions from livestock and the carbon sequestration of paddocks.
AgriWebb has grown from a low-fuss digital record keeping and paddock management alternative to the farmer's traditional pocket book to now monitor about 14 million livestock in Australia, Britain and the US.
Farmers using the platform apparently gain an average 7.5pc increase in productivity by having closer tabs on pasture use efficiency, weight gain and flock and herd fertility.
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Star prizes for rural stories
The hunt is on for regional and rural sector media and aligned public relations sector candidates to win a trip to Switzerland for the 2022 International Federation of Agricultural Journalists Congress.
Entry nominations for the Farm Writers Association of NSW's annual awards for the best broadcast or printed rural story of 2020 or best photographic effort close on February 3.
Categories include the NSW Farm Writers Star Prize for writing; Star Prize for rural broadcasting (including television, radio and online broadcasting), the Australian Star Prize for Rural Photography, and the special AllTech Young Leaders Award for young journalists in the industry whose writing and reporting efforts were of special note in 2020.
Entries must relate to agricultural, agribusiness or regional issues written by nominees aged over 21 years and normally working for the industry in NSW.
- Visit nswfarmwriters.org.au
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Victorian forest executive
Newly minted Victorian Forest Products Association has appointed former Australian Pork Limited policy director, Deb Kerr as the founding chief executive officer Deb Kerr.
Ms Kerr (pictured), who has also previously worked as a policy officer with the rice and southern NSW irrigation industry and with the National Farmers Federation, will bring a wealth of experience and to represent the industry in state government in the wider community, according to VFPA chairman Tony Price.
Her appointment marked a new beginning for Victorian forest industries represented by a single united voice for timber growers, harvesters, processors, and manufacturers, and backed by the auspices of the Australian Forest Products Association.
VFPA supersedes Victoria's Association of Forest Industries.
Native forests and plantations contribute $730 million to the Victorian economy annually and directly employing more than 21,000 people.
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Algae farmed Omega-3
Dutch algae farming business Veramaris has become the first microalgae oil processor in the stockfeed market to produce Omega-3 oil derived from algae certified to the international ASC-MSC Seaweed Standard.
The company produces EPA and DHA Omega-3 algae oil for the fish feed and pet food markets.
To help meet growing global food demand, aquaculture needs sustainably produced farmed fish, fed on responsibly-sourced fish feed containing the two key Omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA.
Both are vital for animal and human health and mostly come from wild-captured fish.
A tonne of Veramaris algae oil provides as much EPA and DHA Omega-3 as 60t of harvested fish.
Veramaris' land-based facility will add an estimated 45 per cent to the global supply of MSC certified EPA and DHA Omega-3 and provides about 15pc of the global requirement for EPA and DHA in farmed salmon feeds.
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