AbacusBio and Bayer expand collaboration to additional crops and geographies

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The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.

Following a successful year of collaboration, AbacusBio and Bayer have agreed to expand their partnership in the area of predictive plant breeding. This marks AbacusBio’s largest collaboration to date, which is anticipated to have a far-reaching impact along numerous crop supply chains. As part of this multi-year collaboration, the companies will work together to incorporate AbacusBio’s leading expertise in prioritisation and valuation of crop attributes to advance Bayer’s products that deliver grower, market, and consumer needs.

The success of this collaboration has been recognised by the IHS Markit’s Crop Science awards, as a shortlist nominee for Best Industry Collaboration of 2021. Moving forward the collaboration will expand row crops across broader geographies and will also include various vegetable crops. Through computational integration of economic, grower preference and socio-demographic data, AbacusBio technology can improve the predictions of how products will meet market needs.

“We know from the first year of the collaboration that the benefits of bringing together AbacusBio’s expertise and Bayer’s wealth of data are significant,” said Dr. Tim Byrne of AbacusBio who has seen first-hand, the benefits farmers stand to gain when science and technology are combined at scale. “Now, working with Bayer to apply the solutions we are building to a broader range of crops is very exciting.” By gaining insights, Bayer is able to better select and advance products that will help meet grower needs and deliver consumer demands. This is achieved by balancing genetic gain across a combination of product attributes to meet production, quality and sustainability needs in the market, while collaborating closely with all members of the supply chain.

Importantly, and aligned with Bayer’s strategic goals, the collaboration will also focus more deeply on genetic gain for global sustainable farming practices and for smallholder farmers.

Excitement amongst both organizations is palpable, as the impact of this work is expected to improve the livelihoods of farmers around the world and allow for improved decision making across the Bayer pipeline.

“Innovation does not happen in a vacuum,” said Dr. Mike Graham, Head of Plant Breeding, Bayer Crop Science. “Expanding beneficial partnerships, like what we have with AbacusBio, brings together the brightest minds to tackle agriculture’s biggest problems.”

“We are thrilled to bring some of our vegetable crops into the partnership with AbacusBio. Leveraging data and algorithms will help narrow in on product characteristics that are important to growers and consumers today and in the future,” said Dr. J.D. Rossouw, Head of Vegetable Seeds R&D at Bayer Crop Science.

AbacusBio applies world class science and technology to improve and enhance the performance, resilience, competitiveness, responsiveness, and profitability of client enterprises. Learn more at www.abacusbio.com.

Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition. Its products and services are designed to help people and planet thrive by supporting efforts to master the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population. Bayer is committed to drive sustainable development and generate a positive impact with its businesses. At the same time, the Group aims to increase its earning power and create value through innovation and growth. The Bayer brand stands for trust, reliability, and quality throughout the world. In fiscal 2020, the Group employed around 100,000 people and had sales of 41.4 billion euros. R&D expenses before special items amounted to 4.9 billion euros. For more information, go to www.bayer.com.

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New Technologies in Low-Income Countries

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Farmer Charlie

The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.

The adoption of new technologies in low-income countries is not an easy process. Some people may fear change, while others may not understand the opportunities offered by technology.

And yet, promoting adoption is crucial!

The adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) in developing countries offers a unique opportunity to transfer knowledge via private and public information systems. Mobile phones significantly reduce communication and information costs for the rural poor. This not only creates new opportunities to obtain access to information on agricultural techniques for rural farmers, but it also fosters the use of ICTs for other purposes, promoting their inclusion in a wider community.

Smallholder farmers should be able to access information and advice anywhere at any time and to apply them in their farming practice straightaway. Timing in farming is crucial. Internet broadband connection and a system that can provide farmers with local, tailored, real-time information is the first step towards increased production, adaptation to climate change, fertiliser and pesticide control, and peer collaboration.

Farmer Charlie’s aim is to create the best circumstances in which farmers develop trust, motivation, and a positive attitude towards new technologies.

-Margherita Magnini

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Farmer Charlie

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Helping Britain’s Hedgerows – an extraordinary ecosystem hidden in plain sight

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Coreo by Natural Apptitude

The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.

Hedgerows might just be the most overlooked ‘super habitat’ we have. Many of us would probably relate to not taking that much notice or interest in them in their own right. A very British feature, they’re often viewed purely as a functional and aesthetic part of the landscape. However, the humble hedgerow is a gem within our heavily modified environment, capable of supporting rich ecosystems and, perhaps even more importantly, of linking together habitats in our fragmented landscape.

Unfortunately, last century the UK lost about half of its hedgerows. This is due to a number of factors, but largely as a result of incentivised removal. This occurred after the Second World War, as it was seen to be one of the best ways to improve agricultural efficiency and facilitate the ‘mass mechanisation’ of post-war farming.

Despite this, we still have around 500,000km of hedgerow habitat spanning the UK, some of which can be considered ‘ancient’. These older hedgerows have particular ‘indicator’ species and characteristics which make them especially valuable for wildlife. Their existence today is a result of ‘an unbroken chain of care, management and periodic rejuvenation…that spans generation to generation, farmer to farmer’ – Megan Gimber, People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES).

However, the quality of the remaining hedgerows differs widely; with many being poorly managed and maintained. These hedgerows are at risk of becoming ‘gappy’ and eventually being lost altogether. That’s where PTES have stepped in to help ensure that we keep the remaining hedgerows as healthy as possible.

Not only are healthy hedgerows a sanctuary for biodiversity through providing shelter, a safe corridor and a food source (one study found over 2,000 species with just an 85m stretch of hedge) – they’re also an asset to farmers. ‘They can provide forage for pollinators, offer crop protection, act as a stock barrier and also as livestock shelters. They can also act as a source of income and have additional environmental benefits including acting as carbon stores, flood control mechanisms and they help to reduce soil erosion and even air and water pollution levels.’ These properties of hedgerows have value to us all and will be become increasingly relevant to the farming sector as the Environmental Land Management scheme is introduced.

To thrive in the long term, hedges need to be managed according to their inherent lifecycle.

For most of their history, hedges were managed by hand. This meant that the woody older year’s growth would remain intact, and so hedges would typically get bigger every year. At some point, they would get too big to easily cut by hand, at which point they’d be left to grow out. When they started to thin at the base, where they were no longer stock proof, they’d be laid – to start the cycle again.

However, modern hedge cutting tools are capable of stripping away most of the energy producing growing part of a hedge, leaving just the older, woody structures behind. While a hedge can cope with this for several years, we’re now seeing the damage it does to hedge structure in the long term.

We have the opportunity now to combine old methods with new tools and insights; using our existing tools, but just tweaking the way we use them to return to more traditional hedgerow management. And people are starting to rekindle their appreciation of what hedgerows do for us and the environment.

In order to help farmers identify how to return their hedges to a healthy state PTES chose to develop an app.

In just 6 questions, Healthy Hedgerows, developed by the Na tural Apptitude team, enables farmers to undertake a rapid assessment of their hedges. It then provides instant management advice, which is tailored specifically to the structure and condition of the hedge in question. No matter what stage a hedge is at within its lifecycle, there is a way to return it to its best.

Megan from PTES states; ‘Trying to manage hedgerows according to their lifecycle, especially across a whole farm, is a challenge. But by using an app, farmers gain instant access to customised hedge management options whilst they’re still standing next to their hedge. This is really important both to help them understand the issues and the solutions.’

‘Whilst we still run quite a few surveys on paper, these can present barriers. Obviously, there’s no way to provide dynamic feedback. People also struggle to add accurate locations and paper surveys often don’t mix well with the frequently inclement British weather!

‘Having a phone app removes these barriers and makes the whole survey process more streamlined and accessible.

‘The speed and ease of using the Healthy Hedgerows app means that farmers, who famously don’t have much spare time, are more likely to get involved. This means it can be a tool in the belt of more farmers wanting to help their hedgerows thrive. We’ve had really strong engagement with the app and most farmers love it. Much of that is due to how it’s been designed and put together.

‘When choosing a provider to develop this app, we had no doubts that we wanted to work with Natural Apptitude as they are renowned for excelling when it comes to creating user friendly data recording apps.

‘The team understand exactly what it takes to make an effective and engaging tool, and this is demonstrated by their impressive portfolio of citizen science and data collection apps.”

If you’re interested in surveying your hedgerow you can download the app for free by visiting the Apple Store or Google Play and searching for Healthy Hedgerows.

For those who can’t download the app, more information is available online: hedgerowsurvey.ptes.org/healthy-hedgerows-survey.

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Aquagrain – The first commercially viable water absorbing soil improver?

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Aquagrain

The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.

Despite the variable global weather Biomation’s Aquagrain has turned in some impressive results in its 2021 Covid restricted commercial demonstration programme.

Aquagrain™ is a unique, organic based soil improver which can absorb up to 30 times its mass in water providing food and drink for plants. Aquagrain incorporates organic waste from the food industry into a biodegradable, carbon chain polymer.

Its organic content, with enhanced micronutrients, not only supplies crops with valuable nutrients, cutting the requirement for inorganic fertilisers, it also significantly stimulates microbial activity in the soil and is ideal for regenerative farming practices. Aquagrain biodegrades over 12 months to leave just water, CO₂ and organic matter in soil.

Controlled environment trials have shown Aquagrain can cut irrigation requirements by up to 50%, reduce leachate by 60%, proven plants survive up to 16 days longer without irrigation if planted with Aquagrain and can increase crop yield by as much as 3 times, but those results needed verification in commercial growing scenarios.

Covid and the withdrawal of DfID funding saw Aquagrain trials with the South African Western Cape Province Agricultural Research Department and the Nigerian Centre for Dryland Agriculture cancelled but rainfed trials with Winter Wheat in the Middle East, Winter and Spring Barley in Suffolk as well as a “Bumble-Bird” crop trial to improve biodiversity on another Suffolk farm.

Aquagrain works best in hot, arid lands, with free draining soils and would be of little use on much of the UK farmland. East Anglia does have appropriate soil types, as well as receiving lower rainfall than the rest of the country. Commercial demonstrations with rainfed Winter and Spring Barley were set up on a Breckland farm with free draining sandy soil over chalk. A further Bumble Bird demonstration was set up on a patch of sandy, dry headland at a farm just outside Aquagrain’s R & D centre in Needham Market.

Aquagrain’s Chief Scientific Officer and inventor, Dr Arjomand Ghareghani was very pleased with the demonstration results despite weather events suggesting conclusive data might prove elusive. Arjomand reported ”It was good to get some demonstrations going after the disappointment of the main trial programmes in South Africa and Nigeria being cancelled, but both winter cereal trials were hit with heavy rain. In the Middle East there was biblical level flooding in the trial area, killing civilians and threatening to wash away the crop. In the Breckland trial it rained for three months post drilling nullifying the benefits of Aquagrain. After Christmas the weather in the Middle East turned from flood to drought and East Anglia suffered weeks of cold dry Easterly’s in the spring. I was not hopeful of significant data from anywhere.”

In the Middle East Aquagrain treatments yielded 720 kg/ha compared with inorganic treatments which yielded 520 kg/ha. Arjomand indicated that typical yields of 800 kg/ha in no ways compares with UK yields and could not be met because of the drought (85% lower rainfall than average) but Aquagrain could be considered an insurance policy against failure.

On the Brecks, despite the wet and dry periods Aquagrain achieved Winter Barley yields of 6.6 ton/ha compared with standard inorganic treatments which delivered 5.9 ton/ha an increase of 12% without an application of Chafer N30 + S fertiliser at 200,000 L/ha. Spring Barley results reflected better Aquagrain properties with an increase in crop yield of 27% from 4 tons/ha to 5.1 tons/ha.

On the Bumble-Bird crop outside Needham the farms wildlife manager reported the difference in Aquagrain, Non Aquagrain field strips as “like walking across a black and white Zebra crossing.” He added that “the headland is so dry nothing has survived in previous years but Aquagrain has transformed the area.” The farm owner was so impressed with Aquagrain performance he requested 35 tons of Aquagrain for his 70 hectares of rainfed cereals planned for 2022.

Aquagrain’s Head of Business Development, JP Dorgan, was pleased with the summer results, but pragmatic about the technology’s immediate widespread adoption. It is great that despite the climate challenges, these results indicate Aquagrain can add value to commercial growers. It is fantastic that even before the Brecklands results were received, after one trial a farmer is so convinced with results that they want to order 35 tons. Unfortunately, our production capacity at our R & D facility is only one ton a month, so it may take us a while to deliver that order. We are expecting the Breckland trial debrief shortly and if the quality of the grain, in addition to the quantity is improved, this could suggest that there is a rainfed crop market in the UK as well as the overseas, high value irrigated crop markets we intend to target when we have secured some investment.

“What we have done in the last couple of months is target a market we can penetrate. We have good trial results from pots, hanging baskets, trees and shrubs, so we have introduced two additional versions of Aquagrain. As well as AquagrainCrops for agriculture, we have AquagrainTrees and AquagrainPlants, to penetrate the retail ornamental market and the landscaping, desert greening and forestry markets. It was a huge effort but in only a few weeks we rebranded, rebuilt the website and prepared a stand for the UK’s largest Garden Centre trade Exhibition, GLEE (Gardening Leisure Entertainments Exhibition) held last week at the NEC. The AquagrainPlants stand attracted a lot of attention, in addition to interest from a number of smaller retailers and distributors we had interest from 3 of the largest players in the retail garden centre arena and have already agreed evaluation programmes with them. We could not really have hoped for a better reception. “

Asked about the future development plans JP added “It has been a great year to date, but there is still lots of work to do. We need to continue to find global farmers and landscapers to run commercial demonstrations with, find investors to fund those demonstrations and scaling up production facilities as more orders are received.”

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B-HIVE RECEIVES FUNDING TO DEVELOP CUTTING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY FOR FOOD WASTE REDUCTION

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B-hive Innovations Ltd

The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.

Leading Agri-tech company B-hive Innovations will host a Future Leaders Fellowship and lead a research project, which will early detect potato diseases and defects before they hit supermarket shelves.

Awarded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), research scientist Dr Barbara dos Santos Correia has been successful in her application for a Future Leaders Fellowship and will receive nearly £675k to support her TuberSense project – a four-year research programme that aims to detect diseases and defects in potato crops, using volatile biomarkers and innovative gas sensors to reduce food waste across the supply chain.

The project will help to establish a framework for crop disease prevention and precision detection from farm to fork by developing new gas sensors that will have a high impact of reducing crop waste and increasing food safety.

Barbara said: “I am delighted to have secured this UKRI funding with B-hive’s support. This funding will support our latest research project, which can transform the agri-food industry.

“We’re incredibly eager to commence our research activities with our project partners – Branston Limited, UWE Bristol, Warwick University and the James Hutton Institute. Our TuberSense project will help to identify emerging climate-driven and disruptive diseases that affect potato farming and storage across the UK and create innovative decision support tools based on volatile sensing.”

The Future Leaders Fellowship is a highly competitive and flexible scheme that supports ambitious and challenging research and innovation and provides training and career development, to maximise the leadership potential of talented early career researchers.

UKRI chief executive, Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, said:

“I am delighted that UKRI is able to support the next generation of research and innovation leaders through our Future Leaders Fellowship programme.

“The new Fellows announced today will have the support and freedom they need to pursue their research and innovation ideas, delivering new knowledge and understanding and tackling some of the greatest challenges of our time.”

Vidyanath (Vee) Gururajan, managing director at B-hive Innovations, said:

“It’s fantastic that Barbara has received this funding. Not only will it support her development as a research scientist, but projects such as TuberSense can be undertaken to help transform the agriculture industry.

“We’d like to say thank you to UKRI, for providing us with this opportunity, and to our partners who will be working alongside our team during this transformational project. We look forward to research getting underway and the results it will bring.”

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Arable Wins 2021 AgTech Breakthrough Award For “IoT Monitoring Solution of the Year”

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Agri-TechE

Arable has won the 2021 “IoT Monitoring Solution of the Year” prize in the AgTech Breakthrough Awards, which recognize the best agri-tech companies, products, and services around the globe.
Arable, a member of Agri-TechE , is based in California, and its products include a portable weather station, Arable Mark 2, which provides localised weather and plant health status in real-time via a mobile phone.
In the UK Arable has partnered with xarvio to combine its hyper-local crop and weather data with xarvio’s powerful crop production optimisation, to support more precise in-field decisions Jim Ethington, CEO of Arable, said: “We want to thank AgTech Breakthrough for validating our focus and vision with this award. Many of the challenges in agriculture today come down to a data problem: lack of accurate and reliable data costs farmers and enterprises billions in sub-optimally applied inputs, lost yields, and unmanaged risks. Arable’s goal is to offer one centralized, scalable digital solution for the full range of agricultural stakeholders, from farmers and agronomists to global agribusinesses and food companies. The team at Arable is proud of the progress we’ve made towards this vision, and we are proud to receive recognition of that achievement.”
Arable is a data and analytics company that delivers more productive and sustainable outcomes in agriculture through an integrated IoT platform that helps food and agriculture businesses gain visibility and insight into their farming operations. Arable works with the world’s most innovative farms, agriculture input providers, and food companies in over 40 countries.
Read more at arable.com.

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IP Pragmatics Wellspring

The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.

This white paper by IP Pragmatics focuses on technological and market developments in the microbiome industry over the last four years, serving as an update to our more in-depth 2017 white paper on the same topic. Since 2017 there has been vertical and horizontal growth in the microbiome market, evolving technological capabilities and an increasingly diverse landscape of start-up formation, partnerships and deal-making

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IP Pragmatics Wellspring

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Agri-TechE Centres respond to National Food Strategy

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Agri-TechE

This content is hosted by Agri-TechE as part of its service to its members. The views and opinions expressed are those of the individual/organisation that supplied the content and not those of Agri-TechE or its employees. This content is hosted by Agri-TechE as part of its service to its members. The views and opinions expressed are those of the individual/organisation that supplied the content and not those of Agri-TechE or its employees. Responding to today’s (15.07.21) publication of the National Food Strategy, the UK Agri-TechE Centres (Agrimetrics, Agri-EPI, CHAP and CIEL) have issued the following joint statement:
The UK Agri-TechE Centres welcome the transformational thinking presented in the National Food Strategy that is needed to address a range challenges including climate change, food security, dietary health, food system resilience and nutritional inequality. The report rightly acknowledges that these challenges are complex and cannot be addressed in isolation from one another.
In our role supporting the delivery of innovation for a resilient and sustainable food system, we share a common focus on many of the Strategy’s highlighted themes, notably supporting Net Zero targets; smarter supply chains; emerging agricultural systems including alternative proteins; smarter primary production; and One Health.

Innovation investment and priorities
The Centres agree with the recommendation for an increase in investment to support innovation and, particularly, the call for a greater focus on ensuring this meets the needs of the agri-food industry – for example to support the delivery of innovation onto farms more quickly. We are already delivering innovative solutions into the agri-food supply chain and we welcome the increased recognition of the need for this work.

National Food System Data Programme
The recommendation to establish a national food system data programme is significant in supporting comprehensive food system innovation as well as providing evidence to monitor the state of the system. As the report notes, establishing the infrastructure to deliver this has some significant challenges. With government support, Agrimetrics has put in place a data marketplace which provides the industry with the infrastructure necessary to share data in a transactional way incorporating multi-level permissioning. Agri-EPI engages with focused precision-level data (including earth observation) on-farm, which also contributes to this recommendation.

Net Zero, meat and alternative protein
In our portfolio of innovation, the Centres are exploring novel methods for more accurately accounting for greenhouse gas emissions including CIEL’s work on novel approaches to methane reduction technologies. The Centres are already active in alternative proteins – for example, the incubation and growth of companies in insect protein and CHAP’s plant proteins work. We plan to expand this with our industry networks and partnerships, to provide more enhanced facilities, so we welcome this specific recommendation.

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New precision genome engineering service from UEA

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University of East Anglia (UEA)

The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.

Researchers from UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences have developed a revolutionary new process that speeds up the success rate of genome editing.

The technique is now available as a contract research service for academic researchers and life science industries such as agri-tech and biotech.

The OmicronCR service, started by Dr Amanda Hopes and Prof Thomas Mock, uses existing CRISPR/Cas genome-editing technology, which alters the genetic code at a specific location on the genome. Editing requires short sequences called guide-RNAs, which are identical to the genetic information of the target site. However, selecting the most efficient guide-RNAs can be time-consuming and expensive, as some guide-RNAs can edit the genome in unwanted places, whilst others do not lead to editing at all.

OmicronCR addresses these challenges with a unique, rapid laboratory test, devised by Dr Hopes. The test carefully designs, evaluates and selects the guide-RNAs that will most likely lead to precise and efficient genome editing for the relevant species, saving the time and costs of trial and error.

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Supercharging light provides plants with energy cocktail to fight pathogens and thrive

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Vitabeam

The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.

CEA facilities boast the most extreme, sophisticated systems of the agricultural industry. Whether it is a vertical farm, a single-tier cannabis indoor cultivation, or a gigantic tomato greenhouse, growers have to deal with extremely complex systems. Even though one might be taking all the precautions, there is still one insidious enemy that could find a way to sneak into the cultivation: mold. “When you grow a plant in a CEA facility, the balance between temperature and humidity is the perfect breeding ground for mold,” says James Millichap-Merrick, CEO, and co-founder of Vitabeam. “This is especially true after the summer when temperatures cool down giving cold temp at night and warm during the day: the perfect environment for molds.”

Dealing with mold
Mold issues can be potentially very dangerous for a grower’s bottom line. “Produce growers try to use the least amount of crop protection possible – the result is to look for non-invasive solutions to treat their crops. However, the problem is, is that there aren’t many of them,” says James. “But then, you get mold issues and your profits get affected. We have seen this recently with some fruit growers: when their produce is affected by mold, it gets downgraded and is sold for a lower price. On top of that, a proportion of the crop will be thrown away, so growers lose money.” And indeed, Emily Cameron with Vitabeam adds: “For many growers, roughly 5-10% of a crop is going to waste due to mold and other bacteria. Additionally, 20% of the product is downgraded to class 2.”

The importance of growing organic produce and ensuring the highest quality possible comes with the wave of increased customer awareness with regard to organic products. “You can also see this in the US where a new organic accreditation for baby leaves is being introduced,” says Katie Powell with Vitabeam.

That is exactly where Vitabeam comes into play. “Growers want to achieve the maximum income for their work,” James says. “As Emily pointed out, growers throw away a significant amount of their crop to mold and bacteria. So, we developed a lighting technology that helps them get rid of molds, bacteria, and dangerous pathogens safely with no chemicals, no UV, and no gasses.”

It’s magic but it’s actually science
What Vitabeam’s solution does is nothing short of magic. “Our supercharging light has a unique and proprietary cocktail of photons that achieves two significant things: by providing plants with around 18 hours a day with this special cocktail of photons, you can stimulate the growth of the plant, making it stronger and less susceptible to mold and bacteria; but also, the light itself kills these pathogens.”

The Vitabeam light is used in conjunction with typical horticultural lighting or natural sunlight, but as said, its function is not specifically as a light source for the plant. “What’s special about this is the proprietary technology with which we can supply the plant with this special mix of energy that stimulates the plant to grow stronger. Trials we have conducted with cannabis licensed producers in the US have shown plants grow more vibrantly, healthily, and with increased organoleptic qualities.” The Vitabeam solution achieves this by triggering very specific responses from the plant. “Growers want to have the best produce, and everything they do is to get that taste, flavor, aromatics, which you can get by having a strong and mold-free plant. Our solution can get that result by increasing the water and nutrient uptake.” Since the Vitabeam solution can be deployed in any kind of CEA facility, James and his team are constantly in the field supporting growers with their cultivar-specific challenges. “We work closely with growers and help them dial in the best recipe,” he continues. “For instance, we help figure out the perfect height for the lights, or for how long our light should be kept on. The goal is always to optimize our system with the customer’s system and get the best output.”

This is especially crucial for those growers looking to increase profit margins by letting the quality of their produce speak. “When your crop gets affected by mold and bacteria, there is also a hidden additional cost to that: it’s not just the cost of losing the harvest, but also the cost of disposing of the waste produce, plus all the labor cost that went into cultivation that now is just thrown away. So, also in respect of a global food shortage, it is very significant for us to be able to help growers reduce that waste.”

For more information:
Vitabeam
www.vitabeam.com

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Precision agriculture isn’t what they say it is

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Farmable

The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.

Precision agriculture is a journey. Lars Petter Blikom shares his journey straddling the twin worlds of agriculture and technology.

I am a farmer. And for the past 7 years, I have gotten to know a lot of fellow farmers, both in my home country Norway and across the world. I have developed the deepest respect for what farmers do.

Day in and day out, they hone the skills of cultivating the land and growing massive quantities of high-quality food. After thousands of years, there is quite a bit of precision to what farmers do. It’s not easy to produce food.

Who speaks for the farmer?

My background is in other industries, my education is in technology, and my 17 years of professional experience have taken me through the hypes of internet-of-things, machine learning, and all the other buzzwords of the past few decades. And as the oldest kid on a farm, I was born with the questionable rights to a rewarding life as a farmer, and 7 years ago, my time had come.

I am writing this as a farmer primarily, perhaps with an unusual background in technology, but a farmer nonetheless.

Agriculture is a massively large industry. Some of the world’s largest companies are dependent on it. And the whole food and grocery industry is dependent on it too.

As with any large industry, all the usual suspects are present; the researchers, the experts, the financiers, the law-makers, the big corp executives, the investors – they meet at conferences and seminars, and they exchange papers, articles, and business ideas. They talk and discuss important things, such as “what is precision agriculture?”

But who’s not there? Who´s voice is not present? The farmers’.

Farmers don’t have time to hang around conferences and chat.

There is an entire ecosystem of players in this industry, fully dependent on the farmer as the core value creator – yet they are surprisingly disinterested in what the farmer needs, wants, and thinks.

I could go on for a long time about the imbalance of power in the agriculture industry, how even the largest of farmers are no bigger than a bug than their suppliers and customers, and how the value created ends up with those with the best negotiation position – never the farmer. But this is not today’s topic.

Defining precision agriculture

Naturally, “precision agriculture” is defined by above mentioned important people. You can read on Wikipedia what they say:

Vegetation indexes (NDVI) from satellites will tell us that our weak plants are… you guessed it; weak.
Cameras with image recognition will tell us what type of weeds we have in the fields… as if we didn’t already know.
IoT-sensors will tell us when to harvest for optimal ripeness… forgetting details like logistics, labour force management, weather, and a few other things that also impact the harvest time.

Don´t conclude I am against these concepts; I am a technologist, believe in the powers of image recognition, know that multispectral cameras in the sky can see things our human eyes can’t see, and I know that sensors will give us a better decision basis. The problem is that the development is technology driven – someone observes a shiny new thing and concludes, “let´s deploy this in agriculture.” The better way to guide development is to let it be driven by user needs.

But they forget to ask the farmers what they need.

This disconnect between farmers’ needs and the new technologies makes them too hard to adopt. NDVI imagery is a good example, it is readily available, and I can get it for my farm cheaply.

I get a yellow/green/red heat map indicating areas with low to high biomass density. It’s interesting; I can go out in the field and compare the heat map with real life – see if it fits. But then what? I don’t trust it enough to create variable zones based on it.

I don’t have the equipment to make variable-rate applications for my orchards. And even if I did, how do I adjust the rates? What’s the right spray application rate for a yellow area on the heat map? There is just not enough available knowledge in my ecosystem to jump into this yet.

It’s like the early days of the internet – remember all that work with dial-up modems and manually fiddling with protocol settings until the damn thing works? It’s like that, plus in farming, you don’t know until 3 months later if it worked or not. And if it didn’t, you can try something else next season – it’s the slowest learning cycle of all. You just can’t afford a lot of experimentation when there’s a year between each iteration.

Precision agriculture is a journey.

It’s a journey the whole agriculture industry has been on for thousands of years and which will continue for as long as people eat food. “Precision” is a word that describes diligence, accuracy, and knowledge in the farmers’ work and decision-making. I will let no external expert claim that word and make it synonymous with drones, satellites, and machine learning. Precision is realized through a farmer’s best judgment in the field. And the farmers will always use the best tools available to inform their judgment.

In the late 1800s, we got the first tractor. In the early 1900s, we got granulated fertilizers. In the early 2000s, maybe we are getting multispectral cameras. No big deal. Mostly, the production of food goes on. Business as usual.

In the next article of this series, we´ll discuss what problems this so-called “precision agriculture” needs to solve. What does the farmer need it to do? And I think we have to debunk a couple of myths too.

This is part one in a seven-part series on a farmer’s journey to precision agriculture.

Part 2: What problems will precision agriculture solve

Part 3: Reinvent how you gather, organize and use your data

Part 4: Why measuring return on investment per field is still a challenge

Part 5: What’s the biggest cost in agriculture? Labour.

Part 6: How to get your orchard future ready? Start automating documentation

Part 7: How variable zoning can lead to more precision in agriculture

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This story has been submitted by an Agri-TechE member.

Farmable

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Harper Adams and LettUs Grow partner to bring the benefits of vertical farming to greenhouses

Member News

The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.

“Quantifying the performance of technologies developed by LettUs Grow in our campus greenhouses, opens up the ability to assess resource efficiency, and evaluate how crop production could work in a variety of landscapes that could bring an array of stakeholders that we just don’t see at the moment”.

LettUs Grow, an indoor farming technology provider in Bristol, has partnered with Harper Adams University to trial different technologies and irrigation systems within greenhouse and vertical farming settings.

With a growing population and struggling climate, it’s never been more crucial to intensify food production in a sustainable way. Many are looking to the Netherlands, the world’s second largest exporter of food, for answers: the Dutch model is renowned for its use of advanced greenhouses and precision farming. Another newer industry that offers a means of growing more with less impact is the vertical farming sector.

Both greenhouses and vertical farms are types of controlled environment agriculture (CEA). All forms of CEA offer the opportunity to grow all year round, through adverse weather conditions or in extreme climates, and reduce the need for pesticides and herbicides. The trials will review crop yields, energy consumption and will explore how productivity is affected across seasons in order to determine the best combination of technologies for food systems that can be both productive and sustainable.

The long running trial, which will span across most of 2021, will explore the environmental impact and compare growth data from two irrigation systems, aeroponics and hydroponics, in different settings: an aeroponic vertical farm and greenhouse, and a hydroponic greenhouse.

Hydroponics is a method of soil-less growing, where plant roots are submerged in a body of water, whereas in aeroponics plant roots are irrigated with a fine mist of water and nutrients. Hydroponics is a method of soil-less growing, where plant roots are submerged in a body of water, whereas in aeroponics plant roots are irrigated with a fine mist of water and nutrients. Aeroponics can provide greater precision, use less water and deliver faster growth rates.

Energy consumption can be one of the largest overheads for a vertical farm, so one key element of the trials will be to identify whether an increase in energy use is balanced by an increase in farm productivity. While the technologies can grow a wide range of crops, the trial will focus on growing kale and pea shoots, allowing for two repetitions per crop, per season.

LettUs Grow specialises in nozzle-free aeroponics, a low maintenance and user friendly system that maximises productivity. The company has also developed Ostara, a smart control and farm management software that will also be used within the greenhouse and vertical farm trials. Ostara can be used to tailor lighting, irrigation, nutrient delivery and environment to specific crops within the same farm, as well as being used to collect a wide range of farm data to help improve productivity and efficiency.

LettUs Grow believes that the application of their advanced aeroponics and Ostara technologies can move beyond vertical farms to have even greater impact:

“Our food supply chain needs to be diversified to achieve productivity and stability, which means maximising the benefits of new technologies in different horticultural environments. The advanced greenhouse industry is a huge part of modern food production and is entering an exciting new phase of growth to help meet global production and sustainability targets. We want to help this industry to grow more, sustainably,” says co-founder and CEO of LettUs Grow, Charlie Guy.

“There is great potential for vertical farming technologies to be incorporated into greenhouses, where they provide greater control and enhance growth rates, whilst taking advantage of natural sunlight to cut energy demands.”

Harper Adams University, the UK’s leading specialist university for the agri-food and rural business sectors, is dedicated to tackling the future development of our planet’s food production, engineering, and land management. The Urban Farming Group is a cross-disciplinary collaboration of academics that are interested in how growing systems such as controlled environment, vertical farming and aeroponics can rejuvenate urban areas, revolutionise food systems, provide activities to encourage social innovation and develop novel and successful business models across all landscapes.

Dr Laura Vickers, Senior Lecturer in Plant Biology and coordinator of the Urban Farming Group, said: “This is a particularly exciting project, greenhouses provide the half -way house between field based production and total controlled environment agriculture. They are excellent systems to apply to urban spaces, such as building rooftops.

Ricardo Lopes, Research Scientist at LettUs Grow and research lead on the project, said: “Bringing aeroponics into a greenhouse setting is really exciting, as traditionally they run on hydroponics. There has been little research into this before so we’re starting from scratch.

“There is huge potential in the opportunity to combine the precision of high-tech greenhouses with optimised aeroponic irrigation – meaning we could offer the plant the exact amount of water it needs, when it needs it, alongside the unique environmental control of greenhouse technology. The prospect of using aeroponics to decrease water usage within greenhouses could be a very important step in making greenhouse production even more sustainable and less energy demanding.”

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This story has been submitted by an Agri-TechE member.

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