Last week, the Australasian Space Innovation Institute (ASII) team touched down at AgriFutures EvokeAG with a clear mission, an important announcement and a willingness to listen.

Building on the legacy of the SmartSat, ASII officially announced its flagship program of impact, the National Digital Twin for Australian Agriculture.

ASII team members (L-R) Cameron Stevenson, Fabrice Marre and Andrew Beveridge on the ASII stand presenting the technology behind the Digital Twin.

ASII Senior Earth Observation Specialist, Fabrice Marre, talks about the Digital Twin at the Elder’s Conversation Space within the EvokeAG 2026 exhibition hall.

Satellite image of Werribee South, where Fragapane Farms is located, taken by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite.

(L-R) General Manager of Fragapane Farms, Joseph Fragapane; ASII Chief Operating Officer, Andrew Beveridge; ASII Senior Earth Observation Specialist, Fabrice Marre; ASII Commercial Director, Cameron Stevenson; and Fragapane Farms Senior Account Manager, Yumeng Chen.

Michael Fragapane (far left), with Gro-Link Nursery Head Growers Lachlan Fraser (second from left) and Muhammadali Daneshinergi (far right) with the ASII team at Fragapane Farms.

While the overall attendance numbers were reportedly slightly lower than last year, you certainly couldn’t tell from our vantage point. Between non-stop conversations at our booth, presenting our vision, and getting our boots dirty on a local farm, it was a week that perfectly encapsulated the incredible potential and the grounded reality of the Australian Agriculture ecosystem.

One of the highlights of the week was presenting in ‘The Conversation Space’ at the Elders Intersection stand. We had a fantastic, diverse audience of farmers, agronomists, AgTech providers, researchers, RDCs and students present. Our core message was simple, and it resonated deeply: The National Digital Twin for Australian Agriculture acts as an engine to accelerate adoption; not as a competitor to existing AgTech companies, but as an enabler.

We introduced the National Digital Twin as a nation-wide, shared geospatial infrastructure using dynamic simulations to turn guesswork into calculated risks before spending capital in the paddock. We emphasised that this engine relies on continuous field data and the irreplaceable local knowledge of agronomists to ground-truth the models. Our focus is strictly on augmented intelligence, not automation, the technology does the heavy computational lifting, but humans must provide the context and make the final decisions.

The response was overall a positive one, leading to a steady stream of delegates visiting our stand to find out how they could integrate with or benefit from the initiative. Having the Kanyini satellite replica on our stand also sparked fantastic curiosity about space, serving as the perfect icebreaker to discuss the power of Earth observation for agriculture.

EvokeAG is fantastic for networking, but it's also a place for vital industry reflection. We attended the thought-provoking "You can’t ask that: Uncomfortable questions, honest conversations" session, which delivered some refreshing honesty. A recurring theme among the panellists was the definition of "impact." The consensus was loud and clear: technology is irrelevant unless it delivers a tangible return on investment for the producer. Whether it’s saving labour, reducing fuel, or growing better pasture, true impact is measured in the paddock and on the balance sheet, not in a pitch deck. Furthermore, the session highlighted that while AI and tech will become more prevalent, the farmer of the future will still be highly connected to the land. Technology must enable them, not attempt to replace them.

Fragapane Farms visit

While conferences are a great forum for discussing the future, the present reality of farming is where the rubber hits the road.

Myself and the team had the privilege of visiting Fragapane Farms in Werribee South, Victoria to gain a broader understanding of their end-to-end process from nursery and farming operations to packaging. Farming roughly 500 acres with four growing cycles a year and with around 40 million plants in the ground, their operation is a masterclass in efficiency and logistics. It was also a brilliant reality check for us as a space innovation hub.

We realised that for highly intensive, fast-paced horticulture (broccoli, cos lettuce, etc.), the immediate impact of space technology might be limited. Farmers like the Fragapanes aren’t interested in "technology" for the sake of it. They are interested in saving money, increasing efficiency, and producing a better product. If a piece of technology can do that, it needs to be incredibly robust, reliable, and offer a very short payback window. They cannot afford to invest in unproven tech or systems that change too rapidly.

Furthermore, a vast amount of their knowledge is instinctual an "art" of farming developed over generations that is incredibly difficult to digitise or automate.

This visit crystallised a core philosophy for ASII - space technology cannot solve everything. And that is perfectly fine. Acknowledging that our Digital Twin might not transform fast-cycle horticulture allows us to focus our engine where it can have massive impact such as broadacre cropping, pasture intelligence, and natural capital monitoring for the livestock industry.

What’s next?

We left EvokeAG exhausted but incredibly energised for the future. The conversations validated our vision: the industry doesn't want more fragmented apps. It wants integrated, sovereign infrastructure that turns complex science into simple, high-value insights.

We are embarking on this journey alongside incredible partners like Elders, Meat and Livestock Australia, and Charles Sturt University, focusing first on the areas where we can drive the most immediate, measurable value. The opportunities are vast, the connections have been made, and the initiative has officially started.

Launching the National Digital Twin for Australian Agriculture and grounding our vision at EvokeAG

Fragapane Farms visit

What’s next?

Australasian Space Innovation Institute unveils National Digital Twin for Australian Agriculture as its first major project