Agri-Tech Q&A: How science and technology can help farming

Agriculture must be more innovative to compete on the global stage, believes Agri-Tech East director Belinda Clarke. Johann Tasker finds out how she plans to bring science out of the laboratory and into the field.

Find out how you can win £1,000 prize for best farming innovation at the bottom of this article.

What are you trying to achieve – and why are you focused on East Anglia?

Agri-Tech East is the UK’s first agri-tech cluster organisation – created to encourage economic growth by improving the competitiveness of arable farming. We bring together farmers, researchers and scientists to support new innovations across a range of disciplines, such as bioscience, ICT and engineering.

See also: Q&A: First Milk’s top farmer on falling milk prices

Eastern England has enormous collateral in terms of its prime farmland and innovative growers. It is also at the forefront of agricultural research – it’s home to the John Innes Centre, NIAB, Cambridge University, Rothamsted Research and Cranfield. Put all that together and it is a really compelling story – for UK plc as well as for the region.

It might sound compelling, but the science lab can seem a long way from the field. How do you bridge the gap?

You’re right. There’s a culture gulf, a vocabulary gulf and a technology gulf – there are all sorts of divides between the farming community and the technology and science community. Farmers tell us they hear a lot of love in the air for agri-tech but it’s not translating into tangible on-farm benefits.

Overcoming that is really at the heart of what we do. I am absolutely passionate about translating appropriate research and technology on to the farm because we are all tired of seeing solutions looking for a problem. So we’re about brokering connections to make everything work better.

We are all about connecting farmers and growers with entrepreneurs and innovators in universities and research institutes. The idea is to get end-user grower input into new innovations as they are being developed, to make sure those innovations are what is needed on the farm.

Is that as difficult as it sounds?

Farmers and scientists have more in common than many people think. I don’t know a scientist who wouldn’t like to see the outcomes of their research having a benefit. At the same time, I don’t think I’ve ever met a farmer that isn’t looking for better, faster or more efficient way of doing something.

Farmers are natural innovators. So you start with a conversation between a grower and a scientist and it can all feel a bit miles apart. But once you’ve actually had a bit of a conversation, and you might need to meet two or three times, you often get to find some common ground.

Can you give me an example?

There’s an interesting collaboration happening at the moment between scientists at John Innes Centre and a company called Nelson County. They are major potato growers in North Norfolk supplying much of their crop to the crisp industry.

It you want to supply potatoes all year round, you have to deter sprouting in store. But anticipated policy changes mean some current storage methods will no longer be allowed – which means we must find new ways of reducing post-harvest sprouting.

John Innes and Nelson County are working together to investigate ways of reducing levels of current agents used to inhibit sprouting in stored potatoes to provide new opportunities for safe and controlled potato storage.

So this is a lot more down to earth than developing unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor crops or developing salt-resistant wheat varieties for far-off lands?

We need that kind of research as well. That’s the point, this region is an innovator for the global agricultural space, so drought tolerance, salt tolerance – we need all of that.

That’s not of any particular relevance to a small grower down the road here, but I hope they start to see that this money isn’t just going into big business. It isn’t just going into large national and multi-national collaborations, it is being invested for the benefit of UK plc and the collaborations we are forging are to help those small growers as well.

You mention big business. How will a family farmer benefit from all of this?

We’re conscious that we want to deliver value to the small family farmer – and there are tens of thousands of them out there. If we can de-risk new innovations and new technologies with the larger players, we believe that knowledge and innovation will cascade down.

We’re working with organisations like Agrii – agronomists who have lots of contact with lots of farmers – to reach smaller family farms. It a very good way to disseminate the message because smaller growers are often extremely innovative.

Smaller family farms may not have the resource or bandwidth to invest in new innovation or crop trials, but we are absolutely committed to ensuring that they will see the benefit of what we do through demonstrations and farm walks, things like that.

New developments can take a long time to reach farm level. That can be a long way off for growers who have more immediate concerns – like low commodity prices.

There are lots of big challenges when it comes to providing a consistent supply of safe, nutritious food. There’s the challenge of maintaining or enhancing yields, the land use paradox of food and fuel, pests and diseases, and the need to manage water and other resources more efficiently.

The flip side is that from a grower’s perspective, the big picture and food security issue is often a little bit far removed – especially when prices drop and you’ve worked really hard all year and your cost of production per tonne means your returns are pitiful.

So while the macro global drivers such as food security and climate change are all around us – it is not a very compelling message to tell a farmer he should be increasing his yield, especially when doing so might involve working twice as hard for half the money.

The message has to be nuanced in an appropriate way to engage all our different audiences. I am very mindful not to just keep on talking about yield at all costs, yield at all costs, particularly when commodity prices could be making that not a very attractive goal to pursue.

Do you have a timescale for making a difference?

One of the great concerns is that we need the next government to hold the faith and commitment to the investment in agri-tech, because these things don’t generally happen within a couple of months. Some do, but usually it’s a long-term thing.

Having said that, I would hope by the summer we are starting to demonstrate some proof of concept – with a cohort of investable, new start-up businesses that are serving the agri-tech industry and likely to grow as businesses that contribute a return to the UK economy.

We are also building up our case studies, like the John Innes and Nelson County example, so we can take more farmers to see what is going on. Then more people can start doing things a bit differently too – and bang the drum to their colleagues and peers as well.

 £1,000 prize for best farming innovation

Innovators have the chance to win a £1,000 cash prize by entering GROW – the UK’s first Agri-Tech Business Plan Competition to encourage entrepreneurial thinking in farming.

Entrepreneurs and innovators from across the UK are encouraged to submit a 12-page business plan describing an innovative new technology, product or service that will help improve the efficiency, productivity or sustainability of agriculture and horticulture.

The aim is to encourage innovative, investable commercial concepts that will have the potential to become new businesses. Everyone who registers an expression of interest will benefit from the support of an experienced mentor to help them to develop the business plan.

First prize is £1,000. Competition entrants must register their interest by 1 March. The closing date for full entries is 15 April. The final will be held on 8 June. More about the competition on the Agri-Tech website