Straggle Muster 174 - 9/12/2005

Necessity - the Mother of Invention with Chris Russell, Australian correspondent

As those of you who listen to the Farming Show - will know that last week saw the wrap up of a popular show on ABC television in Australia - "The New Inventors". The show provides a forum (of in excess of a million people each week) for the showcasing of Australian inventions and innovations which otherwise we might never see - given the shortage of discerning risk takers that might support a new product.

And have we seen some fantastic inventions come out this year - many of them agricultural - but by definition, all of them coming out of a necessity. The agricultural inventions ranged from a redesigned spade for cutting and digging woody weeds and a mothering cage for new born mis-mothered lambs, to three exciting agricultural inventions which were Grand Finalists.

The first of these was a cleverly designed attachment for the foot valve of a pump not unlike a New Zealand "pippy" but none the less called the "mussel" which eliminates any vortex above the foot-valve that would normally cause the sucking of air and hence lose the "prime" on the pump as the level of a farm dam gets down to a few inches from the bottom. The mussel also minimised the sucking of sludge and sand into the pump.

The second was an aquaculture system called SIFTS (The semi intensive floating system) which is floated on top of saline water bodies (or indeed fresh water dams) as a portable and environmentally friendly way to raise and handle fish as a supplementary income for aussie farmers. The system incorporated both a unique continuous waste disposal system that does not contaminate the body of water and also a clever method of moving the fish from the main floating tank into a collection tank for harvesting or other husbandry tasks.

The third agriculturally linked grand finalist was "Stubblestar". Coming out of the weed co-operative research centre for weeds at Wagga in southern NSW, this invention saw the traditional round twin disks used on a number of sod seeders transformed into star shaped discs which pierce through crop stubble creating a seed "furrow" (or more like series of pockets) below the stubble into which the seed and fertiliser is dropped, without pushing stubble into the furrow. This also eliminates the need for a tyne carrying the seed and fertilizer supply to trail behind a single coulter. Eliminating the tyne allows closer row spacings (as trash cant build up between the tynes) and reduction in horsepower requirements with significant implications for eliminating stubble burning and reducing fuel usage.

As it turned out these inventions were up against some tough opposition from the recycling and health spheres. Firstly a retinal camera, designed to be operated by untrained personnel (and able to be dropped out of a truck without damage), which could accurately photograph the retina of remote and third world patients, without the use of eye drops to dilate the pupil, for subsequent emailing to overseas specialists and diagnosis of the major causes of blindness.

But The Grand Final Winner was Molectra tyre recycling - a unique chemical softening and microwaving process which saw old tyres turned into a selection of optional end products including fuel and lubricating oil, activated carbon, steel and pure rubber with a forecast 50% profit over and above the costs of the process and the flexibility to produce whatever end products were in demand at the time or in each area. As the host of the show said... "How great is that!!!???"

Like New Zealand - we in Australia do live in a "lucky country". But "luck is where preparation meets opportunity" and the New Inventors series certainly provides the catalyst for that meeting to take place. Over 3,000 inventions are offered to the ABC for inclusion on the show each year - all of them fathered out of some sort of perceived need - the ingenuity of them is inspiring, the thought process humbling. Yet how many of them do we, as a country, manage to support and develop as definitively Australian or Kiwi - sadly only a small proportion. Most of them end up under the wing (and filling the bank accounts) of an overseas entrepreneur or multinational. So we have our own necessity now, as a country - to overcome our naturally pragmatic and laid back approach - to be visionary and discerning risk takers - to harness our inventive and ingenious ANZAC based character and to see all this cleverness turned into Aussie and Kiwi prosperity.

I am inspired and excited every time I walk onto the set of The New Inventors to judge another three of Australia's cleverest innovations - I hope in some way this programme can make that inspiration infectious and The Lucky Countries can get even luckier!

Chris Russell

Note: You can view all the inventions featured on this year's series by clicking here.

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