Agri-EPI Centre’s Innovation Week 2021 may have taken place entirely online, but the expertise of the speakers and the fantastic response from attendees ensured the week was a huge success.

In five webinars over five days, we were joined by more than 15 speakers from across the agritech sector discussing the latest innovations and advancements in agricultural technology, from robotics and AI to crop sensing and animal health monitoring.

The event was a chance to bring together everyone and anyone with an interest in agritech innovation; we were joined by engineers, manufacturers, investors, business owners and academics eager to learn about the exciting projects Agri-EPI Centre has been involved in around the world.

A webinar a day

For the first session to kick off Innovation Week we explored the use of agritech to monitor animal behaviour and improve the health of livestock on-farm, and were joined by Dr. Chris Cormack of Quant Foundry, Gary McCarten of Pocket Sized Hands and Dr Rick D’Eath from the SRUC.

You can watch Monday’s Innovation Week webinar below.

Discussion covered the Behaviour Analytics Project, looking at how AI methods and analytics can be combined to offer farmers crucial insights into animal health, as well as the SmARtview and Tail Tech projects which, although currently in their infancy, have huge potential to improve farmers’ decision making using technology to closely monitor the animals’ wellbeing, whilst also improving the productivity and efficiency of farms.

Tuesday’s webinar explored how robotics, drones and ultra-fine bubble technology can be utilised in agriculture to increase the accuracy of yield prediction, prevent grain loss in storage and improve the efficiency and precision of crop spraying. Jared Bainbridge from Omega Crop opened the session, followed by presentations from Crover’s Lorenzo Conti and Professor Anthony Furness, of MagGrow.

You can watch Tuesday’s Innovation Week webinar below.

Wednesday’s presentations on increasing the productivity, quality and consistency of livestock across the entire supply chain. Andrew Loftus, Carol-Anne Duthie and Diego Sprekelsen, the team behind the OPTI-BEEF project, discussed how their work is contributing to improved sustainability and quality in beef production, as well as how the Agri-Tech Innovation Hubs supported both OPTI-BEEF and Healthy Heifer.

You can watch Wednesday’s Innovation Week webinar below.

Towards the end of the week the webinars explored broader topics in the agrifood sector. Thursday’s discussion of how the incredible work of SmartFarms around the world, in partnership with academic institutions and government bodies, is supporting farmers across the globe to improve productivity and earnings, was followed by Friday’s session on aquaculture lead by Greg Riddle of Northern Light Consulting.

You can watch Thursday’s Innovation Week webinar below.

From reducing pollution and minimising the environmental impact of fish farms to insights from Innovation Week 2021’s partner, Leyton, on how agritech innovators can source funding and tax relief to get their solutions to market, the final day of Innovation Week 2021 rounded off the week’s webinars perfectly.

You can watch Friday’s Innovation Week webinar below.

Until next time!

We’d like to say a huge thank you to all our speakers, including Agri-EPI Centre staff who did a fantastic job chairing the sessions, and also to the guests and attendees and anyone following along on Twitter. We were treated to 15 fantastic presentations and some really engaging discussion at the end of each session, inspired by insightful questions from the audience.

For information on Innovation Week 2022, and to keep up with all upcoming events from Agri-EPI Centre, make sure you’re following us on Twitter or keep an eye on our dedicated events page