Agri-TechE for Researchers

Agri-TechE has opened a window to the needs of companies across the agricultural supply chain. It helps us to refine the projects that move our research findings towards their deployment in agricultural practice. We find new commercial partnerships and discover the unseen wealth of on-farm and post farm gate innovation. We identified a new opportunity for our pea research programme which led to the formation of new a joint venture company.

Through Agri-TechE , I have made connections with a number of biotech companies who are using the cutting-edge ideas from research to deliver new products and services for the agricultural sector (from beneficial fungi to new imaging and diagnostics). It’s truly an exciting time to be a plant scientist!

Agri-TechE is about knowing people. It’s also an inter-disciplinary subject where you need to know about agriculture, food, and all aspects of technology. The only way you can get that information is through networking. And that is what Agri-TechE is all about. Agri-TechE ’s network is UK-wide and international. It’s one global family that connects us to the whole thing, it’s brilliant!

Agri-TechE is one of the largest and longest established networks in Europe, facilitating exchange of ideas between key stakeholders over the last 10 years. If the UK wants to fulfil its ambitions of improving agricultural productivity whilst reducing environmental impact, we need to fuel closer collaboration between a wide variety of players, including academics, farmers, breeders, producers, consumers, businesses, policymakers, regulators and the public. Therefore, the role of networks such as Agri-TechE will become even more crucial over the next decade.

Cranfield has had the pleasure of working with Agri-TechE since 2018. Over that time, we have benefitted greatly from the varied services that the network offers, from the latest information on key topics, through the opportunity to meet key players in the sector, to communication and dissemination of our own activities. We have particularly enjoyed seeing our early career scientists cut their teeth with imaginative objects at the Emerging Agri-TechE section of the REAP conferences (!), value the opportunity to host conferences at Cranfield that delve deeply into issues relevant to our research (water availability and soil health), and appreciate bespoke introductions to other members of the network that have led to lasting relationships.