Putting farmers at the centre of innovation
Agri-EPI Centre has enlisted a network of farms spread throughout the UK to participate in the Agri-EPI Farm Network.
Why a network of commercial farmers?
The innovation farm network was developed by Agri-EPI from the desire to “close the gap” between research and the end-user, by creating a platform to host research projects and evaluate developing technology in a commercial farm environment, rather than in a simulated or research environment. Each farm has technology deployed to measure variance at every stage of production, understand inefficiencies within the system, and inform the agri-tech industry to direct their research to those areas. The goal is to ensure technology is developed to be robust and relevant to meet the challenges and requirements of the end users.
The network is diverse, comprising different farming systems, sectors, sizes and business structures producing a range of agricultural commodities, all equipped with the latest precision sensor technologies that are purpose-built to measure your agricultural innovation. We provide a set of services to assist in the creation of agri-tech products through either commercial or grant funded projects. We assist in the development process through a combination of a strong technical team and a world class set of equipment and facilities. Our innovation services include validation, full use requirement and analysis, data collection and interrogation, market insight and analysis, sustainability analysis, economic modelling with the focus of ensuring agri-tech solutions will have a positive impact on-farm.
Lorenzo Conti, Founder & Managing Director at Crover, said:
“The Agri-EPI Centre has been our first and main partner for on farm demonstration projects. Being able to access a variety of commercial farm sites for testing and demonstration from early on and getting feedback from some of the country’s most innovative farmers about what works and what doesn’t has been invaluable for us.
Like every new technology, it is ultimately only as good as the value perceived by the end users, and the Agri-EPI Centre’s leadership in Knowledge Exchange and dissemination activities has also meant that we have been able to refine and deliver the message to farmers and grain storage operators and created a regular stream of inbound requests.
We are glad to see Agri-EPI’s team and footprint grow at a similar pace to our own business so as to be able to support agricultural innovation projects at more stages and geographies.
For any public-funding-backed innovation project in the UK, partnering up with the Agri-EPI Centre is a no-brainer!”
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