Our Week in Agri-Tech

👉 We’re growing the Agri-TechE team…..are you – or someone you know – our next new recruit? https://www.agri-tech-e.co.uk/opportunity/team-support-administrator/📣 Final call to “Focus on Finance” with us next week to learn more about different financing options to start and scale your #agritech company and hear from the latest batch of entrepreneurs. Plus SyndetAI will be helping all our start-ups identify the hot (and not-so-hot) spots in their businesses using their proprietary platform. 🔔 Prepping for the new Sustainable Farming Incentive window opening……at some point…..after Sept 22nd……? Discussing this with the land agents, ecologists and ag business consultants from Brown&Co LLP at their drinks reception at Queens College. 🤝 Claim your member discount to attend the World Agri-Tech Summit in London.🙌 New members featured this week are all about herd and plant health:🐄 💻 farmdrive's livestock management platform helps manage the beef supply chain, logging performance, health treatments, compliance records and profit margins🌱 CEON is all about plant nutrition and soil improvement with their range of fertilisers, soil care products, and biostimulants. A warm welcome to you both….and more new members to welcome next week!

More money, making the most of membership and maize…. Agri-TechE’s weekly vlog is recorded alongside (an ever-dwindling) hay store.This week:🤝 Meet the right people, increase your visibility, and grow your network and impact – we walk through how to max out your Agri-TechE membership on Tuesday 8th September at noon. Prospective members also very welcome….come and be part of the community!💷 Two new grant funds landed – the Farmer Collaboration Fund and the Small R&D Partnership competition. Together they total £43m….sitting alongside the #ADOPT grant programme as well, there is a lot of money around for innovation and collaboration.New members welcome to the ecosystem:💡 📉 If you’re a farmer looking to pay less for your energy, the digital platform developed by Multitude Advisors Ltd is worth a look.📈 And for all those wanting to advance the commercial maturity of their agri-tech innovation, check out Juster AgriConsult.Our latest episode of the #Agri-Chat podcast landed – I talked to Peter Palmer of Prodata Weather Systems about #evapotranspiration and weather sensors. Big congrats to the #BrashAg podcast on reaching your milestone, and thanks for inviting me as a guest on your 100th ep.🌦️ 🌽 And finally, deploying AI to reveal the “golden window” during the summer which causes up to half a tonne of crop to be lost for every 10mm shortfall of water.  

In a week where the Government announced a Drought Support Package for farmers, we're calling anyone who wants to meet agritech start-ups…..Read on!☔ With just 1mm of rain falling in some parts of the Fens this week, we dive into the details of the new Support Package. Is it a drop in the ocean of what’s really needed?💷 Come and Focus on Finance with us on the 17th Sept, featuring start-up pitches plus a chance to learn about money available to grow your business and a state of the nation about the agri-tech funding landscape. We have two exhibition slots left for business support organisations – and all the start-ups we feature will receive a free investment-readiness analysis from headline event sponsor SyndetAI .🙌 The Agri-TechE network is officially “Fantastic” – or at least the list of our UK members applying to attend the Agromek trade show in Denmark is! 🤝 Collect 5 @BASIS points for the REAP2026 conference (and farmers – bag yourself a bursary to attend). Plus we have one spot for sponsorship remaining if you'd like to put your brand to one of the UK's key agri-tech conferences.And check out the Agri-Tech Week programme (19th – 23rd October)….which events will you be attending?

☀️ 🌔 🌠 🌊 🥵 🪱 Today’s vlog standing in front a compost pile ready for incorporation – helping build soil resilience for future extreme weather. Three different members deploying three different member benefits📣 Raising the profile of their technology🤝 Bring introduced to the right people for their business needs❓ Specific tech “asks” from a fruit farmer….watch the vid to find out if you can help!Also, catching up with Bitwise Agronomy and how their AI-enabled platform (“Barbara!”) has provided forecasting services for 12,000km of strawberries as well as work out where yield is being lost in strawbs and other berries. (Spoiler alert, it’s not always where the grower thinks it is). 🖥️ Taking the summer to sort out the database and do some crucial updates – making everyone’s life easier (we hope!)☎️ And finally, an exciting call from BBC Panorama…

It’s all about the not-so-humble (and thirsty) spud, where we’ve been considering the science behind growing better potatoes and in a week where the UK’s first gene-edited crop gained regulatory approval. Plus money, the robotics revolution and a great opportunity for our Early Career Innovators. This week:🥔 🍟 Lamb Weston processes 200,000 tonnes of potatoes a year, a great example of supply chain partners supporting their growers to produce an even better crop. We've also been talking soil moisture sensors and drip irrigation as possible mitigations in these dry, hot growing conditions. 🤖 💷 Calling all revolutionary robots as £20m funding is available as part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Farming Futures R&D programme. (This week we sent our members a big funding summary of everything available right now).🍓 🏎️ When F1 meets agriculture….getting the robots to do the heavy lifting on fruit farms, with our latest new member Dynium.🎓 🚜 We have 2 FREE places up for grabs on the Farm Management Skills Programme at Harper Adams University, thanks to our partnership with the Society of Agriculture – get in touch to start your application!

Going all ornamental in this week’s vlog – about a sector that is worth £1.6bn to the UK economy. This week’s round-up from Agri-TechE is from Bury Lane Farm Shop, one of the UK’s leading growers of house plants and flowers – with an awesome PYO experience. Just what we needed for our team away day and teeing us up for the second of our Strategy Days. A huge thank you to Will and your team for the tour of the huge glasshouses full of luscious houseplants - and then letting us loose among the dahlias, agapanthus, delphiniums and more... armed with a bucket and a pair of secateurs…🌸 💮 🪷 🏵️ 🌹 🌻 🌼 🌷 🪻 💐 🪴 🌱 😍 And a serious conversation about the challenges associated with production of ornamentals at scale and discovering the most environmentally-friendly growth medium we have ever seen. All very topical as the Food and Farming Partnership Board is developing the first of its Sector Growth Plans (as recommended in the Farming Profitability Review), focussing on Horticulture. 🪲 Plus important discussions with the Animal and Plant Health Agency at Sandringham Flower Show – the Agency works tirelessly to keep the UK’s plants and animals free from invasive pests and diseases. Colorado Beetle and Yellow Legged hornets were our topic of discussion, but we also touched on Xylella. There is no room for complacency, particularly with a changing climate. 

➡️ All change in the UK Government - including the Department now responsible (again) for funding science, innovation and technology. 👀 Check out our video that landed this week where I talk to Sarah Evered about farmer readiness for dynamic alignment with the EU within Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.💭 Big thoughts with Niall Mottram of Cambridge Consultants about a potential new funding mechanism for innovation in agri-food, inspired by the energy sector - watch this space! (and thank you Mary Nicholls for wise counsel). 💡 Having input into a new report being undertaken by The Royal Society about the future of food - between now and 2100. 🙏 Massive thanks to Louise Border and James FRY for offering the gorgeous Mills & Reeve office in #Cambridge to host our Strategy Day. And you gave us food for thought in your into about quantum computing and the alignment of regulation between life sciences and agri-food.....

Bag yourself a smart grad trainee, discover how it feels to be in charge of a robot, the UK's 5 year commitment to #agritech innovation, and welcome to one of our new members – this week’s round-up from Agri-TechE.🎓 We announce a leap forward in the way we support agritech learning and development through a new partnership with MDS Ltd. Apply to host a trainee and also be part of tech-ing up the training for the next cohort!🫵 Have your say in the planned Engine for Dual-Use Growth and Excellence, bringing together agri-tech and defence, through some work underway by Grounded Research | Market Research and Strategic Development📣 UK Research and Innovation releases its 5 year strategic plan – a commitment to agri-tech, with an emphasis on precision technologies and engineering biology. 💷 “If you are a farmer looking to adopt new technologies…..” – the #ADOPT programme funded by Defra and delivered by Innovate UK is here to help. And for the long(ish) term. 🤖 The AgXeed robot…..as seen on Clarkson’s Farm – remarkably responsive and light on its feet (I mean, tracks). Great day with NFU Mutual looking to the tech of tomorrow. 🚀 Agri-Tech Met Space this week at our event, great discussions across sectors…..any idea how much it costs to send a can of Coke into low earth orbit? (no Mentos needed 🧨).🙌 Welcome to a new member SKALENE LIMITED – developing real-time, non-contact monitoring of pellets, feed, grain, seeds etc as they move through tubes and pipes to keep them flowing freely.