Farming

With a relatively slow uptake of new technologies, the farming and food production sectors are ripe for disruption – but a more “rock and roll” approach to selling some of the steps which have taken in the agri-tech sector is required to increase uptake.

That was the message yesterday at a major conference focusing on agri-tech where scientists, researchers, engineers and farmers heard that the agrifood sector was facing transformative change to deliver reduced greenhouse gas emissions, to mitigate climate change and to protect landscapes and nature.

Attendees heard that technological innovation and data management would be vital in helping the food supply chain adapt to the sustainability challenge, from farm level through to the consumer.

The conference which was organised by the four UK Agri-Tech Centres - Agrimetrics, Agri-EPI Centre, Crop Health and Protection (CHAP) and the Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL) - heard that innovation could help businesses support the UK’s legal commitment to net zero; make food production smarter; and maximise supply chain efficiency and transparency - creating a food system which was better for both people and the planet.

And with sustainability issues becoming increasingly central to supply chain discussions across the UK and global food industries, the time was ripe for the farming sector to take full advantage of the technological innovations which were on offer to them.

But Indro Mukerjee, chief executive of Innovate UK, the body which provides much of the funding research and development in the area said that with poorer uptake of new technologies than other sectors, the farming industry was ripe for disruption – and a more upbeat and hard-hitting ‘rock and roll’ approach was needed to sell these developments to the industry.

“In this country we excel at developing new technologies and in other areas we excel at salesmanship – to get better uptake of we just need to combine the two,” said Mukerjee.

On the sustainability issues, Professor Pete Smith of Aberdeen University who has contributed several papers to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that in the UK food production accounted for 24 per cent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – but this rose to closer to 33 per cent for the whole supply chain.

With land use and land use change accounting for 70 per cent of these emissions he said that the sector had to make use of new developments, the most important of which he listed as the use of nitrification inhibitors -chemicals that slowed the nitrification of fertilisers to cut nitrous oxide emissions – the development of methane inhibitors for livestock and better and more accurate means of measuring soil carbon levels.

While he believed that soil carbon stores could play an important role in the future he said that due to the costs of getting an accurate assessment of soil carbon levels, this currently outweighed any likely income from offsetting credits – and highlighted that further developing research in this area would be crucial going forward.