Aalt Dijkhuizen, the chairman of the professional jury of the Agribusiness Award, always gets a lot of energy from judging those 'very beautiful innovations' that help farmers further. He also sees that it gives the nominees a boost every time. The former chairman of the board of Wageningen UR therefore calls on everyone with a smart innovation – 'big or small, it doesn't matter' – to sign up for the Boerenbusiness Agribusiness Awards.
Not only large companies or innovations with a lot of development money behind can compete for the Award, says Dijkhuizen. "Our price can also apply to innovations that are much smaller, but do have an impact; farmers who apply it are better off than without that innovation."
Five conditions
There are five conditions that an entry must meet. "First of all, it must be a smart innovation that you think: that's clever, that's beautiful." Anyone can submit an innovation, but there is one hard requirement, says the jury chairman: "It must have a financial advantage for the farmer, although others may of course also benefit from it." The third condition is that the innovation must already have proven itself in practice. "No innovation on paper, you must already have a workable example in practice. That does not always have to be a machine or product, but can also be an improvement in a process or a service." The fourth requirement is that the innovation must have potential. "A great market potential, so widely applicable for several farmers in the Netherlands and possibly abroad." The jury then also looks at the appearance. "Is it a likeable innovation, does it contribute to the image of the sector or desired improvement of business? If you think about in Ovoc (which already detects roosters in the egg) then this has a goodwill factor because you can avoid having to kill animals. That is a very nice innovation, and we are moving forward with it."
Surprising entries
Dijkhuizen knows how to surprise the submitted innovations time and time again. Our latest winner, the weed robot (the Robot Weeder ARW-912 from Andela Techniek & Innovatie ed.) that weeds fully automatically, for example, is a great innovation for the future and initially offers a solution for organic agriculture. We also visited Andela with the jury a few months ago. The ingenuity is fantastic. As a jury, we expect that a pipeline will emerge with many fully automatic autonomous innovations."
Also the year before, the winner was one on a technical level, the Lely Sphere. "Now that nitrogen is becoming very big in politics, you see that solutions are coming again when the need arises," said the jury chairman.
Less tangible innovations also have a chance of winning the Agribusiness Award, such as the LG Lab from Limagrain that can sample grass. Dijkhuizen: "With concentrates you know what the cow is absorbing from the diet, but fresh grass varies in composition. Within a few hours you will find out what the nutritional value is with this innovation, so that you can supplement the ration for cows. That is a great example of an innovation that is not very visible, but with which you can optimize nutrition and also reduce emissions, because you are less likely to get overfed with proteins."
There are also regular submissions in the field of animal welfare. "Last year we had a fantastic nomination in the field of animal welfare where you give pigs a vaccine in a smart way (Piglet Treatment Systems ed.). You can immediately see which animal should have what and all data is recorded and retained throughout the chain up to the consumer.
Dijkhuizen: "What always intrigues me is that these innovations that solve social or practical problems then come up, but at the same time you can expect that we will not hear anything about a lot of things and that there are many more in the pipeline. There is a laundry list of great innovations and I expect, and hope, that it will only get bigger. It's always an amazingly beautiful list of innovations that comes out. You would think: that will exhaust one time, but there will be more rather than fewer innovations."
Winning is the icing on the cake
According to the jury chairman, you don't have to fill in a whole paperwork to participate. "We have a standard form that has been well developed in the meantime. I would call on everyone: participate. It's fun anyway. If you're one of the nominees, you're actually already a winner. Boerenbusiness does a lot to make it known. If you win, that's the icing on the cake. It also gives pride. These kinds of innovations are worked on for years, tinkered with. Paying attention to the work you've put into it is a really nice thing."
Dijkhuizen is looking forward to being able to assess all those innovations again. "As a jury, we will once again do our very best to get the best innovations out. It always gives a lot of energy to see what is being developed. You often think: but why wasn't this thought of before. Hats off again to the people who did!"
Have you introduced an interesting innovation for the agricultural sector with your company? Register now for the Agribusiness Award 2023 via boerenbusiness.nl/Award.