Groundswell 2022: soil-first agriculture
Join us for the ‘Agri-TechE Innovation Insights’ Wed 22nd June at 4pm
21/06/2022
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Join us for the ‘Agri-TechE Innovation Insights’ Wed 22nd June at 4pm
We explore how agri-tech enablers can help deliver environmental benefits alongside sustainable food production and the achievement of industry net zero targets. Farmers and advisors share learning points from trials and technologist and researchers discuss promising tools and techniques for supporting the transition to ELMs.
Trinity AgTech enables farmers to measure, optimise and report all aspects of natural capital across their farming enterprises, including carbon, biodiversity and water protection. One of the technologies to be discussed at the ELMs event on 22nd March.
Being able to measure, monitor and manage natural capital and carbon are key to the success of ELMs, and we are bringing together players from across the Agri-TechE ecosystem to gain insights into the best technologies to achieve this. This is just one of the many events and activities featured in this newsletter along with a call to action on the “Hierarchy of Needs” required to support farmers’ agri-tech adoption!
Should the agri-tech industry take the lead and develop a set of environmental standards to support the transition to net zero agriculture? This would create an evidence-base of good practice for retailers and consumers and underpin a movement towards food production with lower environmental impacts, argues Agri-TechE.
It would also help to remove the limbo for farmers during the transition to the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme.
A ‘dating service for plants and microbes’ is how Peter Orrell, founder of MycoNourish, describes his company.
It is creating customised strains of mycorrhizal fungi that are tailored to suit specific crops. Its initial focus is on optimising the performance of strawberry and tomato plants by influencing specific growth traits, helping to maximise crop quality and reduce wastage.
“I am nervous that the new ELMs scheme will focus on environmental improvements over the need to produce food locally in the UK,” says regenerative farmer Thomas Gent, who aims to do both.
Measuring water quality should be a priority for ELMs as it provides an objective and rapid metric for environmental health, argues Lizzie Emmett, Advisor to the Wensum Farmers, a group of 29 farmers covering 10,000ha along the beautiful River Wensum in Norfolk.
“Understanding what is happening below the surface is critical to smart water management. We have developed a sophisticated monitoring system that can provide a detailed view of water infiltration, drainage, soil temperatures as well as root development.”
Our goal is to apply our tools to drive mass adoption of regenerative farming practices, says Matthew Guinness, VP of Sustainability for Hummingbird Technolgies, who will be presenting at the upcoming event ‘Agri-Tech and ELMs – the Innovation Enablers’.
Being able to measure, monitor and manage natural capital and carbon are key to the success of ELMs, and we are bringing together players from across the Agri-TechE ecosystem to gain insights into the best technologies to achieve this. This is just one of the many events and activities featured in this newsletter along with a call to action on the “Hierarchy of Needs” required to support farmers’ agri-tech adoption!
Over 70 percent of the nitrogen applied in early Spring can be lost to the air or water, says Samuel Leadbeater of Timac Agro UK. He is urging farmers to consider phased release nitrogen that will remain in the soil…