Case Study: The Yield achieves fewer oyster harvest closures and better forecasting with Microsoft Azure

The Yield transforms the Australian agricultural industry

The Yield is an Australian ag‑tech startup working with the Tasmanian Government and oyster farmers across 14 estuaries to tackle costly, weather‑ and water‑quality driven harvest closures. Oyster farms have been forced to shut when rainfall gauges signal risk, and the spread of the POMS virus has made closures even more damaging — losses can reach about $120,000 a day and analysis shows roughly 30% of closures based on gauge readings are unnecessary.

The Yield’s solution combines in‑estuary sensors, an Intel gateway and Bosch software with Microsoft Azure IoT Hub and Azure Machine Learning to deliver near‑real‑time dashboards and patented predictive algorithms showing salinity, temperature, tide and weather. The system gives farmers and regulators faster, localised insight to reduce unwarranted closures, better manage POMS risk, optimise harvesting rosters, and protect both food safety and local economies — with a platform designed to scale across aquaculture and broader agriculture markets.

The Yield

Ros Harvey

Founder, and CEO