What agri-tech developers need to hear from the farmers who use their tools.
Technology succeeds when it works reliably, affordably and without making someone’s job harder. That was the clear message that came out of day three of the UK Agri-Tech Centre Growth Week, where we sat down with Somerset farmers Rob Addicott and Jeremy Padfield, along with Dr Annie Rayner from FAI Farms, for an honest conversation about what it takes to make agri-tech work in the field.
With decades of combined experience trialling, adopting and sometimes rejecting new tools across mixed farming systems, Rob and Jeremy offered the kind of perspective that no laboratory or product roadmap can replicate. Annie brought more than 20 years of scientific expertise and a deep understanding of regenerative systems to the conversation. Together, they gave us a vitally important discussion about what the industry too often misses.
Start with the farmer, not the technology
When asked what ‘fit for farm’ means to them, the answers were immediate and practical.
- Relevance, said Rob. Technology that’s designed for the work being done on farm, not retrofitted from a research context.
- Reliability and affordability said Jeremy.
- User-centred design, said Annie. Tools shaped around the people and context they’re built for from the start.
Rob captured a common frustration: “Often technology comes on the farm, and it’s been developed without thought for farmers and how they would use it. And obviously then people are going to be slow to take it up.”
The key:
- Get on farm early
- Ask questions
- Involve another farmer
As Rob put it, farmers will always listen to other farmers. If they know a peer has been part of developing a tool, it carries weight that no research paper or pitch deck can match.
The tech that sticks is the tech that disappears into the workflow
When asked to name technology that had genuinely made a difference, Jeremy pointed to a cross-make vehicle telematics system that tracks all farm machinery in real time, now accessible via a phone app. It tells him where every trailer is during silage, tracks fuel efficiency and records jobs automatically, even when someone forgets to log them.
Its strength isn’t the data. It’s the fact that nobody has to think about it; expecting all staff to manually log data is unrealistic.
The technology that gets adopted is the kind that removes friction, not the kind that adds it. Rob echoed this principle through another example: automatic weighing platforms for beef cattle, positioned at their water drinkers. Animals are weighed multiple times a day without being run through a crush. Health alerts are flagged automatically, which gives farmers a level of daily insight that would previously have required significant time and stress for both the farmer and the animals.
The three questions every farmer asks
When new technology lands on farm, Rob and Jeremy described a set of questions running through their minds:
- Will it actually work for us?
- Can we afford it and will it pay back?
- Can our team, not just the tech-savvy ones, actually use it?
“In order for it to roll out on mainstream agriculture, it needs to be able to stack up financially”, Jeremy said. This is often where promising ideas stall because the business case hasn’t been thought through with the end user in mind.
Rob looks for value beyond the financial:
- Does it add to soil health?
- Does it support animal welfare?
- Does it improve the quality of life for him and for his team?
These concerns are central to whether technology is adopted at a time when farms face significant pressure.
The importance of interoperability
One of the most consistent frustrations was interoperability, or the lack thereof. Jeremy described a drone system that could identify individual weeds in a field with real precision, potentially allowing just 10% of a field to be sprayed rather than the whole area. Environmentally and economically, it was the right tool, but the drone software couldn’t talk to the sprayer. When they approached the sprayer manufacturer, the company decided they wanted to build the mapping function themselves rather than collaborate and the opportunity was lost.
Annie named a related issue from the supply chain side: data collected by different technologies often can’t be compared or shared across different parts of the supply chain, even when everyone is theoretically reporting on the same thing. The result is that farmers end up navigating multiple platforms, relearning systems with each new machine and managing data that can’t flow where it needs to go.
Rob’s wish for the year ahead is a piece of software that allows different technologies to talk to each other. It’s a deceptively simple ask, and one the industry hasn’t yet managed to deliver at scale.
What good on-farm trials look like
When the conversation turned to on-farm trials and demos, Rob, Jeremy and Annie were aligned: short trials don’t build confidence.
A month or two of testing tells you very little about how something will perform across seasons, soil types and weather patterns. Regenerative approaches in particular need to be evaluated over 12 months or more. Demonstrations also need to span a variety of farm types. Farmers watching a demo need to be able to see themselves in it. If the trial is on a completely different scale or soil type, the lesson doesn’t travel, if the technology looks complicated to operate, people walk away before they’ve given it a chance.
Tools that help farmers thrive
Rob shared a compelling example of what technology can achieve when it’s genuinely designed around farming needs. During a difficult autumn last year, they trialled a product to improve soil microbial activity alongside crop establishment. Where the product was used, establishment was noticeably better, and on the trial plots nitrogen input was reduced by around 65%.
For Annie, positive animal welfare is one of the most promising and underexplored areas for agri-tech innovation. Rather than framing welfare as harm reduction, the approach she described is about creating conditions for animals to genuinely flourish and finding technologies that support that holistically, alongside improvements to soil health, farmer wellbeing and environmental outcomes. It maps closely onto the regenerative principles that the whole group were working towards.
Rob and Jeremy were clear that technology should be positioned as a complement to farming knowledge, not a replacement for it. When framed correctly, as something that frees the farmer to focus on the bigger picture, adoption follows far more naturally.
Key takeaways for agri-tech developers
- Involve farmers from day one as co-developers. Peer credibility drives adoption.
- Design for the whole team, not just the tech-savvy. If not everyone on farm can use it, it won’t be used.
- Be upfront about costs. Build a credible ROI case before you arrive on farm.
- Prioritise integration. Integration is not optional.
- Run long, diverse trials. Span farm types, soils and seasons.
- Communicate technology value as time and focus gained, not complexity added.
How the UK Agri-Tech Centre helps you become farm-ready
Becoming farm-ready takes real-world testing and honest farmer feedback. We support businesses across the agri-food supply chain to validate and scale with:
- Testbeds that reflect the diversity of UK farming systems
- Farmer networks and end-user insight to shape genuine market fit
- Data validation to ensure your evidence holds up to scrutiny
- Programmes like FASTA and our Agri-Tech Solution Sprints to help businesses move from technical challenge to commercial opportunity
