Agriculture is one of New Zealand’s largest export income earners, and AgResearch plays a key role in delivering new knowledge and technologies to support the sector. Their purpose is to enhance the value, productivity and profitability of New Zealand’s pastoral, agri-food and agri-technology sector value chains. From investment in proven providers, to decades long scientific research projects and numerous sector-specific subsidiaries, there isn’t much that happens in new Zealand’s agriculture community without AgResearch being involved.
So it was no surprise that when they set about transforming their digital environment, the sheer volume and value of their data was seen as an opportunity. Their mission was to capitalise on these massive datasets, collected over the decades, and make them available to scientific communities, third parties and commercial organisations via collaborative tools and innovative cloud-based applications.
Partnering with Jade Digital, AgResearch was able to release Project HyperFarm. HyperFarm is a tool AgResearch developed, allowing farmers to visualize using their land in different ways and the impact of those changes on the environment, finances, biodiversity, and carbon-sequestration. The challenge for Jade Digital was to move the IP to Azure, breaking it out of a monolith of systems.
To encapsulate (or abstract) these models, Jade Digital developed a RESTful API using C#. .Net Core exposed and secured it via the Azure API management feature, that then integrated with Azure B2C. This framework enabled self-registration for individual private consumers as well as groups wanting to utilise the modelling for a large-scale development.
The tool was previewed at Fielddays in 2019 and went on to gain media attention. We’re delighted to have been a part of unlocking the potential for such a project and making data meaningful!
An API layer is just one of the ways Application Modernisation can play out. Often new functionality can be created from existing technology – a less disruptive path to getting the job done. If you have an ambitious digital strategy and a tiresome core application, we can help. Reach out via the form below for a confidential chat or read some more customer stories here.
