Our Week in Agri-Tech

In a lovely peas-ful field for this week’s Agri-TechE round up – but with the added jeopardy of a gas banger poised to go off behind me any moment…..   This week: 🫛 Excited about the new Pulse Performance Network being developed by Processors and Growers Research Organisation - find out more Cereals Event in June. 🗣️ What does the move to #RegenerativeAgriculture mean for R&D, future col...

Inspired by a field of oil seed rape to talk brassica breeding in this week's Agri-TechE Friday round-up, and marvelling at the diversity of plant species with from a common ancestor. This week: 📣 Announcement from Elsoms Seeds about their new innovation centre 🚜 A public consultation around modernising fertiliser regulations - time to have your say if you import, manufacture, develop, sell, use...

Ending our week at Agri-TechE with a spot of pond-dipping – and reflecting on why we need technology to monitor and manage Nature at scale. Measuring pollination, soil health, water quality, species diversity…..and how to make the return on investment, we’ll be discussing all this and more at our event on 28th April hosted by Rothamsted. No wellies or test tubes needed – and certainly no magnifyin...

Friday round up is from Agri-TechE Towers (too cold and windy to be outside today!). This week: - Introducing some of our latest new members: Livefarmer UK - farm management software to help manage crops and assets, and supporting your audit needs. GIS-Point ltd. - harnessing spatial data for analytics, monitoring and precision application. Pennine Analytical Laboratories Ltd. - measuring the comp...

Some tractor action and a cameo appearance by some roe deer in this week's Agri-TechE round-up. This week: 💡 Being inspired by the University of Reading AgriFood Futures strategy - a multi-disciplinary systems approach to agri-food, from land management to consumer and health, via crop and livestock research, teaching and real-world farming. 💻 Bringing Artificial Intelligence into #agritech - Ma...

Friday round up from Agri-TechE - in a week that has seen the launch of the UK’s Land Use Framework and our hosting of the big ARISE programme delegates from North and South America.   This week: - The Farming Minister was at the University of Reading to talk about the report around land use for food production, nature recovery, housing, energy production, communities and amenities. Good to s...

In this week’s round-up from Agri-TechE , I reveal what I am (according to Belbin) and what we've learnt about teamwork. Also: 📣The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announces dynamic alignment of UK rules with the EU – a single “rule book” on agreed areas of law. I talked with CropLife UK ’s Feodora Rayner about the critical importance of good regulatory practice, scie...

A farming-focussed round-up from Agri-TechE this week, coming from the gorgeous GORGATE LIMITED Farm, an exemplar of production plus nature recovery. In this week’s round-up: 🙏 Reinforcing the important of farmer input into the innovation process through the #Geocrop project – using historical weather and crop data to identify potential fail points for the supply chain. Thank you to our farmer me...

It feels like the UK Spring has sprung – and with it we’re putting out shoots for some new and exciting activities for the month ahead. In this week’s Agri-TechE round-up: 👉 Come and partner with agri-tech innovators from north and south America as the final, UK-based leg of the "ARISE" project comes together at Niab . Plus hear from Dyson Farming Research , BBSRC and Cambridge Econometrics about...

This week's Agri-TechE round-up come from high above the Yarra river, hot (literally) from the AgriFutures evokeAG conference in Melbourne, Australia.   🫶 Aligning mindsets with some utter legends in global #agritech , in particular the awesome Brendan O'Connell ; Peter Wren-Hilton ; Meg Lovegrove and Rob Hulme .   💡 Being inspired by the keynote address by Andrew Bate , farmer and fou...

A presenting duo for this week's Agri-TechE round-up (but one of us had to do all the talking).   This week:   🗓️ Lots of named "days" and weeks, including the UNESCO Day of Women and Girls in Science, also National Nestbox Week and - crucially - Mind Your Head Week, raising awareness and support for mental health in our industry and farm safety. #MindYourHead Farm Safety Foundation (Yel...

The Agri-TechE round up from our week in St Louis, Missouri on the second stage of the ARISE programme with AgriTIERRA , Earthbase , Embrapa and the The Yield Lab Institute . This week's vlog featuring: 💭 Some takeaways from the week's discussions and those who inspired our thinking. ❗ Discover my new favourite mantra - is this the key to developing effective #agritech innovations.....and explai...

Talking water and some important bedtime reading in this week's vlog from Agri-TechE .   🌱 Always a joy to visit Elsoms Seeds - we were channelling the aura of John Craven (he filmed a recent BBC Countryfile segment in this very glasshouse!).   📖 A thoughtful report from CropLife UK about the potential implications of "dynamic alignment" with the EU on UK crop production.   📕 The...

A mega week at Agri-TechE , but any week that ends with horses has to be a good one. This week's round-up (also available as a podcast in Our Week in Agri-Tech) features: 🏇 When agritech meets horse-racing 🚜 Sustainable production of crops for renewable energy, with Future Biogas 🙏 Our Stakeholder Group meeting, kindly hosted at CPI and overseen by our new Chair Helen Ferrier . 🔎 A deep dive i...

This week's Friday round-up from Agri-TechE from the gorgeous estate run by the SALLE FARMS COMPANY . A brilliant example of an effective farmer-cluster group, leading the charge around data sharing and innovation adoption. Also in this edition: 🟢 Announcing our new Chair of the Agri-TechE Stakeholder Group 🟢 There's still time to sign up for our Making The Most of Membership webinar on Weds 21s...

What were the take-home messages of The Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) ? The first Agri-TechE roundup of 2026 gives a quick overview (spoiler alert - there wasn't much #agritech ). The debate was our highlight, with the motion "This House Believes Farming Will Be A One Day A Week Job in 90 Years".   Mentioned in dispatches in the vlog - Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secr...

In this week's round-up from Agri-TechE: 🥔 Speaking at CUPGRA 's 36th Annual Cambridge Potato Conference and attending the gorgeous Potato Barons' Feast - from innovation management for new tech - to identifying country of origin of the celery......by taste!  💷 Funding for Scaling £100m up for grabs through Innovate UK 's new programme. 🤗 Catching up with members Elveden Farms Ltd and Inte...

This week’s podcast will reveal…...   The value of “nature benefits” in England in 2024 (at £37billion, it’s more than any single manufacturing sector in the UK) and why we should care about the UK’s newly-released Environment Improvement Plan. Plus Agri-TechE ’s event on Nature-tech for Profit and Planet in April 2026 at Rothamsted Research in April next year. https:// www.agri-tech-e.co.uk/...

What does the UK’s #agritech community hope the Modern Industrial Strategy will deliver on the ground? This week’s Friday round-up comes from  @syngenta  's global R&D HQ, where we debated four potential pillars of growth – investment, scaling, partnerships and exporting. Huge thanks to Gardin, RootWave, Tropic and AgriSound for candid sharing of the importance of these pillars for t...

From AI (in all its definitions) and IOT via the “AKIS” and learning from the Irish and New Zealand agri-food systems – with some big thoughts on UK horticulture. This week we discovered: The power of AI in distilling complex content – Burleigh Dodds commissions publications from world experts on topics around agri-food, including regenerative agriculture. Their AgNetZero platform enables a qualit...

Closing the week where we’ve seen the REAP2025 conference and the community come together around the 30:50:50 Summit for innovation in agriculture – our industry is only heading one way. And we ALL need to be part of the change. Big love to everyone who was part of the REAP conference, one of our favourite reflections in the feedback was the noticeable positivity and “can-do” vibe among the farm b...

We're so busy in the Agri-TechE team, this week's vlog was recorded on my way to the car from the office! We're in great shape for REAP Conference next week, last chance to register! In other news: 💻 The Agri-Tech Week event blogs are coming in and we have a short (but snazzy) video summarising the Week's events. 🛰️ Giving a talk about the state of global agritech to the team at Lacuna Space - wi...

Welcome to our latest new member Field Zero – putting farmers' needs at the heart of the innovation and discovery process (and well done for your dedication to #ATW2025 !) Plus the latest Agri-TechE newsletter landed this week, (with our latest new blog - "Is scaling is ever plain-sailing in #agritech ?").   Plus excellent member meetings this week with Delytics Ltd ; Prime Agriculture Llp ;...

How do we feel about an EU-wide framework for assessing and monitoring soils? The Council of the EU has just formally adopted a Soil Monitoring Directive, with the aim of achieving “healthy soils across Europe by 2050.” (As someone recently pointed out, 2050 will be quite the watershed year, if the many MANY aspirations are indeed achieved by then 🙂).   Anyway – given the challenge the UK ha...

Friday round up from Agri-TechE is in London – this week's vlog features a re-boot of some of our activities, a host of meetings and a reminder to book your hashtag#REAP2025 and hashtag#ATW2025 tickets! In summary: 🤝 Meeting the (very) Great and (very) Good members of the esteemed Agricultural Forum to talk all things agri-tech. 💡 An Agricultural Productivity Group meeting, excellent chairing by...