Queensland Department of Primary Industries: Sowing the Seeds of Farming Innovation Fund
Opportunity for
Companies whose technologies and products materially enable productivity and value creation within Queensland’s primary industries, including:
- Agtech and digital agriculture
- Automation, robotics, sensing and decision-support tools
- Sustainability and resilience solutions
- On-farm productivity technologies
- Supply chain and value chain innovation
- Biotechnology, biosecurity and advanced biological platforms.
Opportunity description
Industry challenge
Australian agriculture is under increasing pressure from climate variability, rising input costs and labour constraints. While many promising technologies exist, growers often face barriers to testing and adopting new solutions at a practical scale.
There is a clear need for collaborative investment models that help promising primary industries innovations move from development to commercial scale and adoption.
Queensland’s primary industries sector is at a pivotal moment. Innovation can unlock step-change productivity and drive sustainable regional growth. The Sowing the Seeds of Farming Innovation Fund (the Fund) supports this transformation by investing directly in early to growth-stage companies that:
- deliver measurable public benefit outcomes, including productivity uplift and environmental resilience
- strengthen Queensland’s ag-innovation ecosystem and commercialisation pathways
- address adoption and capability barriers through investment readiness support and targeted engagement.
The fund complements the broader Queensland Government Primary Industries Prosper 2050 blueprint by:
supporting commercially focused innovation
encouraging collaboration across industry, research and investment partners
contributing to the long-term growth and competitiveness needed to boost Queensland’s primary production output to $30 billion by 2030.
Current opportunity
The Fund is a $30 million Queensland Government initiative designed to accelerate agricultural innovation, adoption and productivity across Queensland’s primary industries.
The Fund is managed by Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) and operates as an investment fund, not a grants program.
Eligible companies seeking investment are encouraged to visit the QIC Sowing the Seeds of Farming Innovation Fund webpage to find out more and provide information about their business. Visit QIC to find out more and submit your interest.
Investment focus
Eligible investments
The fund will support investment in innovative businesses that deliver measurable benefits for Queensland’s primary industries.
In considering investments, the fund will focus on businesses that demonstrate:
innovation and commercial merit
productivity benefits for Queensland’s primary industries
clear Queensland benefit
alignment with the fund’s areas of focus.
If your business is developing innovative solutions that can enhance productivity, strengthen resilience and deliver measurable outcomes for Queensland’s primary industries, visit QIC to find out more and submit your interest.
Opportunity background
The Fund invests across the agricultural innovation capital pathway, supporting companies whose technologies and products materially enable productivity and value creation within Queensland’s primary industries.
How the fund will work:
The fund will operate as an QIC-managed investment fund, not a grants program.
It will make investments in the form of equity interests in eligible businesses.
It will invest across the capital pathway, from early development to growth and selective later-stage opportunities.
It will also support innovative businesses that are developing, commercialising or deploying products and technologies for Queensland’s primary industries.
The Queensland Department of Primary Industries (DPI) will continue to engage with industry, universities and other stakeholders across the sector to support a strong pipeline of investment-ready businesses and to help achieve the fund’s objectives.
As part of the Queensland Government, DPI works to ensure Queensland primary industries—the essential backbone of our economy and communities—are productive, profitable and sustainable for future generations.
We do this by connecting industries, the community and government to grow our economy, protect our primary industries from biosecurity threats and support rural communities.