Armidale entrepreneur goes global with soil testing app

AG-TECH entrepreneur Sam Duncan will gauge global interest in his innovative soil testing app in Israel this May, at a boot camp for Australian ag-tech start-up businesses.

Innovative app: AgriFutures Board Member Tony Hamilton presents Sam Duncan with the Austrade Bridge Hub Special Prize at EvokeAg conference in Melbourne.

AGTECH entrepreneur Sam Duncan will gauge global interest in his innovative soil testing app in Israel this May, at a boot camp for Australian ag-tech start-up businesses.

The 33-year-old from Armidale won a pitch competition at last week’s EvokeAg conference in Melbourne and his prize was a trip to Tel Aviv to take part in the program, run by Austrade and Bridge Hub.

“I certainly didn’t expect it,” said Sam, one of 13 business founders to present to judges.

“We are very humbled to have received it. I can’t wait to represent Australian agtech on the world stage.”

Sam launched the FarmLab app two years ago.

It simplifies soil testing by using yield and vegetation data to tell agronomists where to collect samples, tracks the samples from farm to lab and delivers results and agronomist interpretations to growers. “It is kind of like Uber for soil sampling,” Sam said.

“The main problem, which nobody has solved, is making it an easy process.

“Right now, an agronomist sends results to a grower in PDF or paper format. The grower has trouble collecting long-term data.

“By giving the grower more power and that original data set, we think we can help solve that problem.”

An ex-air force logistics officer, Sam became interested in reducing soil degradation when stationed in the Middle East and Africa with the armed services.

“The thing I noticed was their very poor soils,” he said. “Coming back to Australia, where we have some of the oldest and most weathered soils, yet we have a really strong vibrant agriculture industry, it dawned on me the importance of agriculture.

“We have a huge opportunity to be the bread basket of Asia. But we really need to ramp up our exports and solve some of the bottlenecks in our industry. And soil is absolutely one of the biggest bottlenecks we have.”

Sam is working with agronomists at Swan Hill and scientists at the University of Sydney to fine tune the app.