Industry impact | Agriculture technology projects, research & developments

Bridging the gap between the agriculture technology industry & research

Here at Agri-EPI Centre, we’re on a mission to become a world-leading centre for excellence in engineering and precision agriculture across the livestock, arable, aquaculture and horticulture sectors. Within every part of the agricultural supply chain we operate a wide range of agriculture technology industry-led activities in applied research and development, demonstration, training and education.

Each of our project case studies have been designed to give a broad and transparent overview of each stage of the project. Learn more about each of our individual agriculture technology projects:

Boosting Lending Potential with Satellite Imagery System GRID

GroWise & GRID

Known as GroWise, the project has paved the way for the implementation of ‘GRID’ technology. GRID is a Crop Growth Index (CGI) service that uses synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) data, optical satellite data and precision weather information to model a variety of common African crops on a crop-specific basis.

A UK-New Zealand agri-tech partnership

Agri-EPI Centre, United Kingdom, and Massey University, New Zealand are collaborating to understand the variation in productivity across New Zealand’s beef and dairy sector, and how this variation relates to greenhouse gas emissions per unit of food produced.

Data-driven precision agriculture by DRAGON

Agri-EPI Centre is a core partner within the data-driven agriculture services and skill acquisition project DRAGON. The aim of the project was to enable communication skill transfer and knowledge exchange between research organisations and end users through big data and effective data analytics.

Hands Free Farm – creating the world’s first autonomous farm

The Hands Free Farm project launched in May 2019 following the end of the award-winning Hands Free Hectare feasibility study, which was the first in the world to plant, tend and harvest a crop without a driver in the seat or agronomists on the ground.

KASP genomic solution

This project is developing LGC Biosearch Technologies’ proprietary genotyping technology (called KASP) by providing thousands of new KASP markers to aid Asian rice breeding programmes and accelerate the breeding of new rice varieties with greater disease resistance.

Paraguay satellite demonstration farm

With Innovate UK funding, Agri-EPI Centre is helping the farm to connect the cows ‘to the cloud’; moving away from analogue to digital collection of data that is accessible 24/7; providing an initial monitoring test facility to validate best-of-breed British technologies that have potential to significantly improve agricultural output in Paraguay.

Precision soil mapping

The research relates to the development of novel approaches for precision farming and food security. This is a subject of interest in the general public, and accordingly the project has generated substantial press and media interest. The project has been reported in a number of Industry and practitioner media, culminating in a interview on Radio Four Farming Today. These non-academic impacts reveal the extent of the wider interest themes that the project research topic relates to.

Detect pig tail biting - TailTech - Agri-EPI Agri-tech enabler

Detecting pig tail biting by TailTech

Tail biting in pigs is viewed as one of the most widespread and seriously aggressive behaviours that can manifest in a pigpen. Discover TailTech — a radical high-tech solution devised by Scottish scientists as an alternative to the controversial last-resort practice of tail docking in piglets.

Wireless and mobile connectivity with 5G RuralFirst

A co-innovation project to create rural test-beds and trials for 5G wireless and mobile connectivity across the Orkney Islands, Shropshire, and Somerset. 5G held particular promise for boosting download speeds, lowering latency, and laying the foundations for improving connectivity for billions of devices.

Precision agriculture by OPTI-BEEF

The project integrates automated data gathered across the whole life of individual beef animals (from calf all the way to the carcass). The purpose of this is to create an enhanced decision support platform to modernise, standardise, and drive efficiency improvements across the UK beef supply chain.

Precision agriculture by WELL-CALF

This £1 million project aims to develop the first cloud-based decision support platform to serve different levels of decision-making on dairy and beef farms. WELL-CALF’s precision agriculture technology provides support for farm-level decisions (e.g. health management, nutrition) all the way through to policy and practice decisions at the systems level.

To find out more about our projects and the service and support we offer, please get in touch.