Participants can win $25,000 by developing technology that reduces labor needs
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
A non-profit organization dedicated to growing the agbioscience economy has opened the application window for an innovation challenge to help people with ideas bring them to life.
AgriNovus Indiana’s Producer-Led Innovation Challenge, supported by the Indiana Soybean Alliance and Indiana Corn Marketing Council, is open to companies, entrepreneurs, students and innovators interested in developing technology that reduces labor needs while removing the difficulty of having to choose between investment risk and labor uncertainty.
The winners will receive a $25,000 grand prize.
“Farmers continue to face critical headwinds when it comes to securing adequate on-farm labor,” Mitch Frazier, president and CEO of AgriNovus, said in a statement. “The Producer-Led Innovation Challenge creates an opportunity for tech innovators to develop solutions that reduce administrative burden and drives value on the farm.”
The 2024 contest focuses on digital innovation in areas like data management, government program compliance, labor management, labor resource access and robotics and automation.
“The primary inefficiency is that of labor management and its relationship to the adoption of various labor-saving technologies. Simply put, finding adequate labor is difficult,” an Aimpoint Research summary says.
AgriNovus commissioned Aimpoint to conduct a study to help guide the scope of the innovation challenge.
Farmers have continuously discussed the challenges of finding reliable labor.
In June of this year, for example, American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall, wrote a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack about this very issue.
“As I travel the country meeting with our members, the issue top of mind among all of them is the ever-growing labor shortage and the extraordinary costs and regulatory burdens associated with it,” the June 14 letter said. “At Farm Bureau, addressing the challenges in our agricultural labor force is at the top of our priorities.”
And in December 2023, Rebecca Schroeder, a pork producer from Albion, Ind., shared how few potential candidates are available.
“In 2013 in her region, there were 27.2 potential workers for every job opening. Today, ten years later there are 0.8 potential workers for every job opening in 2023. This sets the stage for our industry to become increasingly innovative to attract and retain production employee talent,” an Indiana Pork newsletter says.
People interested in participating in AgriNovus Indiana’s innovation challenge have until 11:59 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 7 to apply.