The Agribusiness Award has entered a new season. The award is being presented for the sixth time. This year, ABN AMRO is co-initiator and co-organizer of the Award. This year, attention is not only paid to technical innovations, but also to system or chain innovations such as promising market concepts.
The Agribusiness Award is intended as an appreciation for a product, service or chain concept that realizes benefits for Dutch farmers or horticulturists with an innovative product or new service. For companies that inspire the sector with their innovative strength and social involvement and take it to a higher level. Companies from the Dutch food and agribusiness are therefore cordially invited to register for the Award this year with their innovation of a product, service or business process. Registration is possible until December 1, 2024.
Participating gives a boost
Aalt Dijkhuizen, chairman of the professional jury of the Agribusiness Award (right in the photo), always gets a lot of energy from judging those 'really great innovations' that help farmers. 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 register for the Award.
There are five conditions that an entry must meet. "Firstly, it must be a smart innovation, that you think: that's clever, that's beautiful." Anyone can submit an innovation, but there is one strict requirement, says the jury chairman: "The farmer must benefit financially from it, although others may of course also benefit from it." The third condition is that the innovation must have already proven itself in practice. "Not a paper innovation, 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 large market potential, so widely applicable for multiple farmers in the Netherlands and possibly abroad." The jury then also looks at the appearance. "Is it a sympathetic innovation, does it contribute to the image of the sector or the desired improvement of matters? If you think of 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
The submitted innovations surprise Aalt Dijkhuizen every time. Last year, BBLeap emerged as the winner. BBLeap won the Award with a plant-specific spraying technique with a real-time camera. "This is really a technique for real precision agriculture and can be used very broadly and internationally," according to the jury chairman. The year before, the weed robot (the Robot Weeder ARW-912 from Andela Techniek & Innovatie ed.) the winner. This fully automatic and self-propelled weeder is an innovation for the future and initially offers a solution for organic farming. The winner of the previous year was also one on a technical level, the Lely Sphere"Now that nitrogen has become such a big issue, especially in politics, you see that solutions are still being found 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 taking from the ration, but fresh grass varies in composition. Within a few hours, this innovation tells you what nutritional value it contains, so that you can supplement the ration for cows. That is a great example of an innovation that is not so visible, but with which you can optimize nutrition and also reduce emissions, because you are less likely to get overfeeding of proteins."
There are also regular entries in the area of animal welfare. "We also had a fantastic nomination in the area of animal welfare where you give pigs a vaccine in a smart way (Piglet Treatment Systems ed.). You can immediately read which animal needs what and all data is recorded and retained throughout the chain up to the consumer."
Dijkhuizen: "What always intrigues me is: these innovations come to the surface, but at the same time you can expect that we hear nothing about a lot of them and therefore that there are many more in the pipeline. There is a laundry list of beautiful innovations and I expect, and hope, that it will only get bigger. It is always an astonishingly beautiful list of innovations that comes to the fore. You would think: that will eventually run out, but there will actually 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 and ABN AMRO offers help to further develop the innovation and to market it well. If you win, that is the icing on the cake. It also gives pride. These kinds of innovations are worked on and tinkered with for years. Attention for the work you have put into it is then a really wonderful thing."
Dijkhuizen is looking forward to judging all these innovations again this year. "We as a jury will do our utmost to select the best innovations. It always gives you a lot of energy to see what is being developed. You often think: but why wasn't that thought of earlier. Hats off again to the people who did!"
Have you and your company launched an interesting innovation for the agricultural sector? You can still register until December 1 via www.agribusinessaward.nl.