AgriZeroNZ
Breakout Kiwi ag-tech company, Āmua, has secured $1.2million from AgriZeroNZ to accelerate development of its cow wearable technology. The Canterbury start-up, based on a hill country farm near Waiau, is developing a smart device that enables the rich nitrogen in cow urine to be used as fertiliser - potentially solving freshwater nitrate leaching and nitrous oxide emissions at their source.
By spreading the concentrated urine patches out across the paddock, data modelling by AgResearch in the Bioeconomy Science Institute (BSI), has indicated the patented device could provide comparable pasture growth to synthetic nitrogen, reduce nitrous oxide emissions by up to 95% and nitrate leaching by up to 93%.
Āmua CEO and co-founder, Roger Johnson, who farms in North Canterbury, says they’ve developed the technology to transform the naturally abundant on-farm nitrogen (N) resource into an eco-friendly and cost-effective fertiliser. “Nitrogen is a key nutrient for grass growth and there’s plenty of it naturally available on-farm, yet as a farmer I can spend around $150 per cow on synthetic fertiliser and a lot of it is being lost into the groundwater or air. By spreading the cow-produced nitrogen across the paddock, we can increase the effectiveness of this natural fertiliser.”
At present, a single nitrate patch can contain the equivalent of 600-1000 kg of nitrogen per hectare, while synthetic fertiliser application rates are typically 30-50 kg per hectare[1]. These small, highly concentrated nitrogen patches leach into groundwater and escape into the atmosphere as nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas that accounts for 15.9 per cent of New Zealand’s agricultural emissions. “We’re supporting farmers to grow pasture for half of the cost and significantly reduce the environmental impact – that’s a win-win,” Johnson said.
AgriZeroNZ chief executive, Wayne McNee, says they’re pleased to back the unique solution which marks their first equity investment in nitrous oxide mitigation. “Āmua is a brilliant example of Kiwi ingenuity to tackle a common challenge on-farm and potentially deliver a range of environmental and economic benefits.
Methane gets a lot of attention in the emissions landscape, but cutting back nitrous oxide can also play an important role in lowering our overall emissions and meeting the targets set by some of our biggest export customers. High-impact, scalable innovations like Āmua will be vital to meet global demand for emissions reduction and safeguard the export economy we all rely on,” McNee said.
A prototype device, developed with support from the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Māori Agribusiness Innovation Fund, has been validated in trials on Ngāi Tahu Farming’s Te Whenua Hou dairy farms. Āmua also recently sought feedback from AgriZeroNZ’s Farmer Focus Group to guide future development.
“I admired Roger’s thought process on this and his desire to deliver a practical solution for farmers,” said Phil Sherwood, a third-generation dairy farmer in the Waikato and focus group member. We know the response rate to nitrogen is pretty standard based on soil temperature, regardless of whether it’s out of a cow or from a bag but there’s much more value in growing pasture with the nutrients we already have on farm, as well as the clear environmental benefits, so I’m all for it.”
The investment from AgriZeroNZ is part of a seed funding round and will support the next stage of development to a minimum viable product for pilot trials in 2026.
