Emerging Industries: Agriculture and Technology: November, 2018

This is the second Emerging Industries: Agriculture and Technology report as part of the Horizon Scanning: Opportunities for New Technologies and Industries project. The main purpose of this report is to provide a list of new industries in the agriculture sector, which have the potential to develop due to the influence of emerging technology. To assist the identification of new industries that have the greatest possible impact for the Australian rural rector, a framework was employed that considers Australian agriculture’s strengths weaknesses, opportunities and threats. From this framework, fourteen contextual factors have been specified which present critical challenges and opportunities for Australian agriculture. Adapting to the challenges and taking advantage of the opportunities brought about from these context factors will require careful strategy. In some cases, this will include building on the comparative advantages that Australian agriculture already has. In others, it will require the foresight to identify and then develop entirely new capabilities. Therefore, the emerging industries identified and presented in this report have been selected based on their viability and their potential to address the current contextual challenges and opportunities faced by Australian rural industries.