Stimulating new ideas, sharing best practice and meeting people with challenges and solutions – these are the aims of Agri-Tech East meetings. We have certainly covered some ground already this year! If you’re one of our members and you missed out then there is a chance to catch up with our reports – short, sweet and informative – on our publications page.
A New Agriculture – What Will the Future Hold?
A precision farming specialist, a plant breeder and an agricultural engineer look to the future and give their three wishes. For the plant breeder the development of novel breeding technologies such as gene editing mean this is a hugely exciting time for plant breeding; hybrid wheat, improved pest resistance and breeding focused on benefits for consumers ranked highly. For the engineer, better cooperation, being ‘of the moment’ and valuing work experience were up on the list. And the agronomist wanted robots for variable seed rate, smarter drones and better connectivity. Read more in the report.
Show Me the Money! – Focus on Funding Revisited
There is money out there if you know where to look. Our speakers do and covered crowd sourced funding, grants and R&D tax credits in an accessible way. The devil is in the detail which is included in the report.
Delicious and Nutritious: Innovations for High Value Crops
Years of breeding have been directed a improving appearance and yield – taste hasn’t been a criteria. This is partially because it is subjective and also because it is hard to measure. Scientists and breeders discussed how this could be addressed. Also discussed was how breeding can increase nutritional value of the food, helping to address the ‘big challenges’ of malnutrition and obesity.
Bring Out Your Data!
Where are we now and what next were the discussions in this workshop. A new service developed from analysing text messages, a new way of measuring potato yield using smartphone images and improving forecasting iceberg lettuce production were among the examples discussed to show the different ways that data can be collated and analysed to provide new insights and services.
Members can view all our event reports on our publication page.
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