UK Agri-Tech Centre has welcomed the Prime Minister’s recognition of the important role that farmers play in agri-innovation.
Addressing the NFU’s annual conference PM Rishi Sunak announced £270m worth of grants to help boost productivity and resilience, namely the Improving Farm Productivity Scheme and Farming & Technology Fund.
He said that farming is going through its biggest change in a generation while dealing with soaring input costs, climate change and extreme weather. He also said that farmers are at the forefront of innovation, from gene-editing to boost disease resilience to automation for harvesting crops, and recognised food security as part of national security.
The adoption and diffusion of new products and services in agriculture is a long slow process. Technology can come with a hefty price tag or new processes that have to be implemented into complex farming systems. It takes time, money and effort to create the evidence-base to validate new technology – over several seasons and geographically diverse locations – that the sector will trust.
Adoption is a key part of the merging UK Agri-Tech Centre vision and future work areas: in becoming the UK’s largest dedicated agri-tech organisation we shall work collaboratively, accelerating adoption rates by supporting co-developed solutions, de-risking technology, demonstrating benefits, and collating and disseminating evidence to inform adoption investments across the sector.