The future of farming: integrating tradition and tech
Agri-TechE 
What will farming look like in 20 years’ time? As we move more online, will there be a greater focus on software? How will inputs and outputs differ? What will be future farmers’ requirements? To help find answers, Richard Anscombe, of Agri-TechE Stakeholder Group, set up the Fram Farmers Next Generation Council.
The Next Generation Council, alongside initiatives like the Young Innovators’ Forum, aims to offer younger farmers across East Anglia – and further afield – networks for information-sharing, upskilling and ideas.
Thomas Mountain is one of four 20-somethings who manage the Council. We asked him to share what he is hearing from the next generation.
Staying ahead of the times
I don’t think it’s an unfair generalisation to say that the younger generation are more technologically interested and astute. One of the roles of the Next Generation Council is to capture those views and ensure they are heard now, as opposed to in 20 years’ time when they might take over the business.
It is important to have that insight coming through, as the earlier technology can be brought into agriculture the better.
Drone spraying and soil mapping are still in their infancy, but over the next 5 years this technology will increase exponentially in terms of quality and decrease on the cost, becoming much more readily available.
But having a current understanding of this technology is key. We all know farmers have to plan 2 or 3 years in advance and it is extremely important to consider the latest technological developments now, just to make sure we are going to stay with the times.
Everything is going online: you go to any meeting now and, regardless of how old attendees are, they will get their laptops out and phones set up before the meeting starts. People are constantly checking emails, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp to ensure they don’t miss out on anything.
We are an information-hungry generation and we want to ensure we’re kept constantly updated.
Upskilling to achieve the best in British agriculture
For us, building community is as important as exploring new technology. A big part of that is communication, that’s not just online, but face-to-face communication too. Everything from conversations around succession to negotiation tactics.
If you’ve grown up on a farm, you might have always known you are going to farm, but you might never have been in a position to have had a bit of training on how to look at people or have someone say to you, “That’s good, but if you did just this differently it would put you in a slightly stronger positon”.
Like Agri-Tech, and many other agricultural organisations, our goal is to have the best British agriculture that we can. We have to have the most forward thinking agriculturalists, the most profitable farms and a really well-educated, well trained, disciplined generation of farmers coming through to back all of that up.
Becoming a driving force
Technology is in every other industry, but in some ways the farming industry is behind when we should be at the forefront.
The amount of technology employed in agriculture, the amount of knowledge, the amount of mechanics; we need to flip it around from picking up the pieces at the end of technological innovations to agriculture being the real driving force.
If you are part of the younger generation of farmers, young at heart, or would just like to find out more about Agri-Tech’s work, sign up for our Young Innovators’ Forum newsletter.
Post Overview
Agri-TechE Related Posts
ECIF visit to The Genome Analysis Centre
Bayer hosts Young Innovators Forum at local research farm
Young Innovators’ Forum: AgriScience Conference 2018
YIF Blog: KWS Seed Breeders
Young Innovators at KWS
research. JIC is an internationally renowned centre for plant science research, working on projects ranging from plant breeding, to food nutrition, to using GM techniques to improve crop resilience.
h is fascinating to say the least. Elliott specifically has a goal of reducing acidity in oranges. If they can achieve this, it means less sugar will need to be added to juices and orange flavoured products – helping reduce sugar intake of the public. Elliot is using baby kumquat to experiment on – it’s genetically very similar to orange but grows much faster – so it’s quicker to see results. Elliot is using CRISPR technology to replace genetic sequences with synthetic ones in order to test his hypotheses.
h is to make a simple assay test to help identify the flowering cycle of your specific plant and build allowances into your farm processes appropriately.
rray of work going on covering all aspects on plant science. All our hosts were remarkably good at communicating their work and talking through, not just what they are doing, but why they are doing it – how it could help farmers and growers, breeders, nutritionists, other researchers, and even consumers, which, at the end of the day, is what we are all interested in.
Our recent hackathon was a shining example of how people with different skills are poised for recruitment into the industry.
If you wold like to be at the forefront in collaborative and industry led training and upskilling the young people of our future please do get in touch.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained – but what can you afford to lose? The role of public money in de-risking the development and adoption of new technologies was recognised recently with the announcement of £90M investment into agri-tech via the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.
Can two industries with apparently different purposes really be thought of as comparable and able to support each other? The answer – yes, absolutely, says Chrissie Freear of the PwC Agri-tech team.
I can see a real benefit of Fintech and Agri-tech businesses collaborating and working together, not only in developing technology but also in going to market to offer their products and services, helping to solve real-world problems.
better! To paraphrase an excellent quote, all the work going into agri-tech will count for nothing if it’s not communicated well. We covered some of the ways to communicate better visually – both through film and photography. (You can 
t a local farmer. It was interesting to see what doesn’t already exist that you would think does, and also gratifying to know fieldmargin are working on some them already – goes to show the value of end user input during development!
less labour intensive and will of course help in the face of prospective chemical restriction – but it is slower and needs an identifiable row in order to work.
We were delighted to welcome a board level delegation of farmers, scientists and businesses from 
Laura Bouvet has been appointed Knowledge and Innovation Facilitator for Agri-TechE and the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB); the first time the two organisations have collaborated in this way.
