Woolgen NZ awarded an MBIE New to R&D Grant

Woolgen NZ Limited has been awarded a New to R&D Grant to support research and development on Atamai, our farm compliance and intelligence platform for New Zealand sheep and beef farmers.

The grant co-funds our R&D alongside our own investors, and it also funds something less obvious: building the capability to do research properly, with the discipline and record-keeping that goes with it. For a small team, that matters as much as the money.

Atamai exists to take the compliance load off farmers. Farm environment plans, assurance programmes, and their audits all ask for the same information in different shapes, and most of it already exists somewhere on the farm, just not in one place. The hard part, and the reason this is research rather than ordinary software development, is whether AI can help turn the scattered, inconsistent records a farm already holds into compliance evidence that is accurate enough, and explained clearly enough, for a farmer to submit and an auditor to accept. Any such system has to work on the farm itself, meaning we need to ensure this all works where connectivity can't be taken for granted. And while AI promises to help reduce the compliance burden, it is critical that the farmer stays in charge. Our system proposes, while the farmer confirms, and the data remains under farmer control, always.

We are grateful to MBIE for the support, and to our pilot farmers, who have given us their time, their paddocks, and a good deal of patience with early versions.

Erik Kiær, CEO, Woolgen NZ Limited