Key takeaways
EvokeAg 2025 proved once again a dynamic, thought-provoking event showcasing exceptional innovators and innovation throughout the local and international agrifood tech community.
The TNQ Drought Hub joined the other seven Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs and close to 2000 attendees from 27 different countries to foster connections with the goal of building a more resilience and sustainable agricultural sector.
The hub sponsored several producers and a JCU researcher to attend the conference for the first time to help them expand their connections and networks and learn more about the agricultural innovation ecosystem.
Our central Queensland Adoption Officer, Jane Barker, based at Central Queensland University shared her thoughts around also attending EvokeAg for the first time and her takeaway on the “strength of common ground”.
I have an appreciation for how diversity adds strength to grazing pastures. Evoke helped me appreciate the diversity in people and roles working to strengthen Australian Agriculture. My most valuable experience was in the connect and collaborate sessions sitting at tables with people I would not often find myself alongside. Hearing their language, perspectives and interpretation of challenges and opportunities was (and is) instrumental to finding common ground.
Evoke revealed the importance of looking through ceilings and focusing on stars. Finding common goals that draw us together and move our industry forward. The future is bright with shared experience and stories.
Evoke brings people together. It’s easy to comment on the empowered drive and shared ideas but I was also inspired to see prompt robust discussion and a rekindling of lost faith. I left this event valuing the power of conversation and being open to different perspectives.
Was it the thought-provoking sessions? Or Billy Slaters comment on the characteristics of a good player vs a good coach? Was it Melanie Leathers enduring passion? Or connecting new tech with potential trial sites? Was it a conversation with a biometrician on how to quantify tech benefits? Or the shared connection with many people I’ve admired from a distance for a while? Whatever it was, the energy revitalised my core and I know the ripples from Evoke 2025 will be felt far and wide.
Some take homes:
The leadup to the conference included several sideline events, such as Millennia of AgInnovation and the CQ Agtech Showcase hosted by Central Highlands Development Corporation. The hub funded two central Queensland based cattle producers to attend the CQ Agtech Showcase.
One producer commented on how inspired he felt, coming home and evaluating his own attitudes to his business and what innovations may be out there to assist. The other commented on how the sideline event was worth going to and that networking with people who have different trains of thoughts, and making other new contacts was the most valuable part of attending.
EvokeAg was a catalyst for connection and collaboration, bringing together new ideas and strengthening a collective commitment to a resilience and innovative future for Australian agriculture.
