As part of a UK Government campaign encouraging UK companies to export their goods, the Department for International Trade has released a short video which we were delighted to see featured Agri-EPI Centre, our partners and our Midlands Innovation Hub.
Global collaboration plays a vital role in developing solutions for our farming industries – so in September we were delighted to receive 20+ visitors from New Zealand on an innovation-led agri-tech mission. The visit followed our own expert mission to New Zealand in March this year: our nations have many farming similarities, so agri-tech innovators are uniquely placed to share challenges and opportunities.
Farmers across the UK and Ireland already use technology from New Zealand companies like LIC, Gallagher, Waikato and Tru-Test, and there is plenty that our own innovators can do to help farmers across the globe. The challenges are the same whether you farm in New Zealand or the UK: achieving greater productivity and efficiencies, labour availability, environmental pressures and changing consumer preferences. Smart technological solutions can help answer those challenges.
With the help of the Department of International Trade, Innovate UK, Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland, the Callaghan Innovation-led mission visited the Irish National Ploughing Championships and UK Dairy Day, as well as our Agri-EPI hub in the Midlands and the South West Dairy Development Centre in Somerset.
Les Hurdiss, Operations Manager at the Midlands Agri-Tech Innovation Hub, explains:
“Agriculture is New Zealand’s number one industry, so their government really promotes innovation. But the domestic market is small, so they need to expand globally.”
By creating ‘landing pads’ in the UK, employing British staff, receiving British investment and developing new innovations for the British market, everyone stands to benefit.
In addition, having a straightforward entry to the New Zealand market helps our own investors and innovators, while having a presence on opposite sides of the world speeds up technological advances due to the ability to squeeze two seasons of testing into one 12-month period.
Having returned to New Zealand, Peter Wren-Hilton, Executive Director of Agritech New Zealand, has already drafted actions and initiatives to submit to Government ministers. Times are moving rapidly ahead: watch this space.
Mission reportEarlier this year, Agri-EPI Centre took part in Agri-Tech Expert Missions to Australia and New Zealand respectively. KTN has delivered two separate publications that summarise the opportunities for UK organisations in both areas and insights gathered during the delegation’s time. Don’t miss out on these insightful documents and download them here.
Innovate UK’s Global Expert Missions, led by Innovate UK’s Knowledge Transfer Network, play an important role in building strategic partnerships, providing deep insight into the opportunities for UK innovation and shaping future programmes.
Keep up to date with the latest impact and results of our work, plus, news, innovation and approaches across the sector. Read our latest news and Agri-EPI blogs.
The exciting opportunities for trade with Latin American markets were the focus of a recent successful trade mission to Paraguay involving several UK agri-tech companies.
The mission was led by Agri-EPI Centre, working in close partnership with the Department for International Trade and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It featured the Ministerial launch of the Agri-EPI-led Paraguay Satellite Demonstration Farm at the Paraguay Expo 2019, a major event showcasing the country’s farming, industrial and services sectors.
Agri-EPI Centre has been leading the Innovate UK- supported Satellite Demonstration Farm project in Paraguay since January 2018. It has involved partnering with a farming business to demonstrate UK agri-tech in the agricultural economy of Paraguay.
The farming business, GVasa in San Pedro, spans 85,000 hectares and incorporates cattle, maize, soybean and rice production enterprises. The initial focus of the Smart Farm project has been on improving finishing cattle efficiency through remote live weight monitoring and improved nutrition. The ability to capture real time live weight data empowers dynamic decision making combined with improved nutrition, leading to better feed conversion efficiency.
The economic outcome of introducing UK technology means more profitable farming systems, reduced environmental footprint and improved economic sustainability.
There have so far been two UK commercial partners involved in trials on the farm. Ritchie Agricultural has provided in field weigh crates for cattle, while Harbro has been trialling its Maxammon feed supplement.
Next steps for the Smart Farm project are to continue with the current trials and to assess the priorities for additional activities. Two areas currently being considered are technology for tracking cattle across the huge swathes of land on typical Paraguay cattle ranches, and gathering harvest data.
Joining the trade mission were Hummingbird Technologies, Brinicombe Agri and AGCOM. With Agri-EPI and DIT representatives, the delegates visited the Smart Farm in San Pedro, attended a reception hosted by the UK Ambassador to Paraguay Matthew Hedges; took part in the Smart Farm launch with the participation of Paraguay Agriculture Minister Juan Carlos Denis Lichi, Vice Minister of Agriculture Nicasio Romero and Vice Minister of Livestock Marcelo Gonzáles.
The delegation also had an opportunity for B2B networking with some of the many Latin American businesses attending the Expo, and gave positive feedback about the potential opportunities arising from the trip.
Dr Elizabeth Warham, DIT’s Agri-Tech Lead said:
There is often a reluctance from the end-user – farmer or agri-business distributor – to purchase technology that has not been validated and tested by farmers in the target market, making it difficult for companies to sell technology at a trade event to enter a new export market. A showcase demo smart farm provides a platform for companies to collect data, support claims and illustrate product effectiveness in-country. Where these smart farms are connected to the UK Agri-Tech Innovation Centres – in this case Agri-EPI – academic and research organisations can also be engaged to further develop technologies, so they are appropriate to the local context.
Dave Ross, Chief Executive of Agri-EPI said:
There are tremendous opportunities for trade in Paraguay, where there is openness to the UK and great interest in our agri-tech know-how. It is worth highlighting the benefits of the local Maquila regime that affords benefits for UK companies who become active in Paraguay, and then qualify for tariff-efficient access to whole of Mercosur, the Southern Common Market. We thank the companies who took part in the mission and look forward to continuing our exciting collaboration with UK and Paraguay partners.
Ian Cox, Agri-Tech Centres Innovation Lead of Innovate UK, added:
Innovate UK is particularly happy to have supported this Smart Farm in Paraguay. I am heartened by the progress made in demonstrating how UK technology can help to reduce the environmental footprint of farming in Paraguay whilst at the same time improving productivity and profitability. I hope this can lead to further joint collaborations with Paraguay companies to develop further the technologies needed to help solve some of the fundamental problems the planet faces to feed a growing global population.
Keep up to date with the latest impact and results of our work, plus, news, innovation and approaches across the sector. Read our latest news and Agri-EPI blogs.
As part of the UK’s new Technology Partnership with India, Agri-EPI Centre will be part of a trade delegation travelling to the cities of Chandigarh, New Delhi and Mumbai in December, taking part in a major tech festival along the way.
As the world’s the largest single agricultural market, farming contributes 16 per cent of India’s GDP, employing 49% of the Indian workforce on 160 million hectares of arable land to provide food for 1.3 billion people. With more than half of the Indian population expected to live in urban areas by 2050 and agricultural workers dropping to just over a quarter of the total workforce, mechanisation and technology will play an increasingly important role in improving the productivity, efficiency and sustainability of Indian agriculture.
Led by the UK Government’s Department for International Trade, the UK trade delegation will meet with senior policy makers in the Indian Government, three State Governments and private sector companies. The aim will be to gain insight of local market conditions, opportunities and challenges while building a collaborative network with senior decision makers, influencers, academics and buyers in the Indian agri-tech industry.
The programme will start north of Delhi in the combined Punjab/Haryana state capital, Chandigarh, and will include a roundtable with both state governments, progressive farmers and academic institutions.
On 12 December, the delegation will attend the ‘India-UK Future Tech Festival in Delhi, where they will participate in the ‘Path Breaking Innovations in Agriculture’ session. This will involve key officials in Indian Government, private businesses, research organisations and UK Government ministerial attendance.
Following the festival, the delegation head on to Mumbai to interact with leading private businesses as well as the Government of Maharashtra. The delegates will end their trip with visits to farms in the Nashik region, India’s leading wine-growing area. Watch this space for a report on the trip in early January!
Meanwhile, Agri-EPI Centre member Willand Group Ltd is holding an event in London on 15 January for businesses wishing to learn more about accessing the Indian agricultural market.
The ‘Opportunities for Agri-Tech: Indian Market Catalyst Event’ will offer a summary of the market and highlight the key opportunities available to UK/EU companies. Companies will also have an opportunity to ‘pitch’ to investors and businesses which are actively looking for investment opportunities. More information is available here.
Keep up to date with the latest impact and results of our work, plus, news, innovation and approaches across the sector. Read our latest news and Agri-EPI blogs.
Successful collaboration is key to the future of UK’s agricultural technology. This was a key message to emerge from the recent Game Changing Technologies in Agriculture event, organised by the Department for International Trade.
Billed as one of the ‘must attend’ events in the UK agri-tech calendar, more than 200 attendees from farming, the supply chain and the technology sector came together in London to discuss the innovative tech being developed and applied across the agri-food industry.
Agri-EPI’s exhibition space attracted enquiries from a host of organisations keen to know about current projects and discuss opportunities for joint working.
Lee Williams, Manager of Agri-EPI Centre’s Midlands Agri-Tech Innovation Hub also gave a joint presentation with Precision Decisions’ Clive Blacker on the benefits of collaboration in agri-tech projects, using the award-winning Hands Free Hectare project as a case study. Led by Lee, Agri-EPI Centre provides project management services and facilities to follow-on projects that are supporting the Hands Free Hectare team to improve autonomous technology and its application to farming. Lee said:
“Some of the technologies and innovations being showcased at the event were truly stunning and I was amazed at the advancement in available technologies that has taken place over the past five years, such as the progress on Artificial Intelligence.
“Compared with other sectors, agriculture is very much holding its own in the development of new technology. There is a great deal of interest from the big players with the ability to bring in new technologies from other sectors, while there are a rapidly growing number of SMEs within the industry where innovation is thriving. Successful collaboration across these areas will pave the way to an ever more exciting future for UK agri-tech. Agri-EPI Centre will be right up there playing a prominent role in helping to forge beneficial new connections.”
Keep up to date with the latest impact and results of our work, plus, news, innovation and approaches across the sector. Read our latest news and Agri-EPI blogs.
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