Rachel Currie, (left), from the Foundation for Arable Research and Kate Kircher are off to the Innovation Generation conference in Adelaide. Photo Colin WilliscroftAshburton arable specialist Kate Kircher is heading to Australia to explore how farming can put its best foot forward in a virtual world.

Kircher, who works for Carrfields, is attending the Innovation Generation conference in Adelaide, which begins on Monday.

She will be with an Arable Ys group of about 14 that also includes Foundation of Arable Research staff.

The theme of the annual conference is Telling the Ag Story in a Digital Age, and speakers at the event, aimed at 18-to-35 year olds in the grain growing industry, include those who already have a digital footprint to those who can explain how to make that footprint more visible in the future.

Topics include keeping track of agricultural data; utilising social media; challenges around the agritech revolution; and roadblocks to agricultural innovation.

Other sessions include one on how consumer trends are driving consumption in grains and another on understanding consumer attitudes to food production.

For Kircher, it’s a great opportunity to get the lay of the land involving some of the latest technology applicable to the industry and to meet some of the different people involved.

She has not attended the conference before but has spoken to some who have, so is expecting to hear plenty of cutting-edge ideas from innovative people.

One of the highlights for her will be meeting Australian arable specialists and discussing parallels between the industries in the two countries.

Following the conference, the New Zealand group will spend the rest of the week on a post-conference tour, visiting farms and the Pure Grain storage and packing facility on Kangaroo Island, before a visit to the Hart field site north of Adelaide, where the group will find out more about arable research being undertaken there.

Kircher said she is expecting to gain more insights during those visits that she can bring back to New Zealand.

By Colin Williscroft © The Ashburton Guardian - 1 July 2017