Abstracts
Innovation in agri-tech
Royal Academy of Engineering
Monday 12 October 2.00pm – 6.30pm
Keynote
Keynote address: precision in agri-tech
Willie Thomson, Technical Director, Harbro Ltd; Industrial
Leader of the proposed Agricultural Engineering Precision
Innovation Centre bid for the next Centre for Agricultural
Innovation
The UK's agricultural industry has the potential to take a
leap forward in sustainable efficiency if it can harness the
opportunities offered by new precision engineering
technologies. These technologies, along with the data
generated from the associated sensors, will transform
understanding of production; will allow more efficient
targeting of scarce nutrients; and could place the UK at the forefront of a new
global agricultural revolution.
The UK government has recognised the need for this transformative change and
reflected this in its AgriTech strategy. This initiative is engaging industry and
researchers to create a new dynamism within the food and farming industry.
Central to the AgriTech strategy is a £90 million investment in new Centres of
Agricultural Innovation.
At present, the first Centre, on agrimetrics, has been commissioned, and three
other proposals have been selected for final negotiations. These are a livestock
Centre, a crop health Centre and a precision engineering Centre.
The proposed Agriculture Engineering and Precision Innovation Centre (Agri-EPI
Centre) is an industrially-led collaboration between the food supply chain,
agricultural engineers, precision technology providers and leading UK academic
institutes. This proposed Centre aims to place advanced engineering at the core
of UK agricultural science, and to use the data generated from sensor technology
to create an understanding of the greatest opportunities and requirements for
further research and development.
In his presentation, Willie Thomson, lead of the Agri-EPI bid, will detail the
opportunity created by the government's AgriTech strategy, and will outline how
this proposed new Centre could address the challenges faced by industry to
create a global opportunity for UK engineers.
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Session 1
Efficient agricultural systems: from machine to farm
Trevor Tyrrell, CEO, CLAAS UK
Many large agricultural harvesting machines have reached a
physical limit in terms of weight, width, height or length.
Therefore, future efficiency gains cannot be made by simply
producing larger machinery - efficiencies have to be gained
in other ways. Recent innovations include new automation
systems such as CEMOS, new sensors such as the use of
digital imagery, internet and satellite connectivity such as
Telematics and GPS Pilot, and new farming systems such as
Reduced Traffic. Trevor will discuss a number of the
innovations behind these systems, and take a peek into the
future of harvesting.
Robocrop: precision weed control and sprayer
technology
Philip Garford, Managing Director, Garford Farm Machinery
Ltd
Garford specialises in the development and manufacture of
farm equipment employing video imaging systems to
control specific localised operations in the field.
Weed control in commercial farm crops is becoming
increasingly restricted due to a number of factors.
Legislation has removed from use any chemicals which risk
even a small trace of environmental contamination. Existing
chemistry is breaking down due to resistance build-up in weeds. Manual labour
is becoming cost restrictive and quite often not available when required.
Garford’s range of Robocrop implements use video imaging systems which,
working in real time, differentiate crop from other vegetable matter (weeds) in
order to locate the position of either the crop, the weed or both and then utilise
that information to carry out beneficial operations in the vicinity of the crop row
or individual plants. The specific operations can be either mechanical weeding
which can cut down herbicide usage to zero in many cases or target specific
material applications such as herbicides so cutting often to just 1 or 2% of the
overall rate of use, giving clear environmental and commercial benefit.
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Session 2
Scaling up precision irrigation
Dr Mark Else, Programme Lead - Resource Efficiency for
Crop Production, East Malling Research
New, low-input cropping systems are needed to help reduce
the impacts of global climate change on food security, food
chain quality and availability of limited resources. A first
step towards achieving this goal is to identify the
agronomic and environmental factors that affect yield,
quality and shelf life of fresh produce. An oversupply of
irrigation water and fertiliser can lead to excessive
vegetative growth which, in turn, reduces light penetration
and increases the risk of disease, and during changeable
weather can result in produce with poor organoleptic qualities and limited shelf
life. Precision, automated irrigation systems that match demand with supply
have been developed for several horticultural sectors, and results from on-farm
experiments have shown that in addition to improving resource use efficiency,
marketable yields and consistency of produce quality can also be improved. New
sensors and associated technologies are being developed to ensure that these
benefits can be achieved in commercial production systems. In tandem, novel
imaging systems are being developed to ease the integration of these low-input
approaches into commercial practice, so that consistency of cropping, plant
performance and crop responses to abiotic and biotic stresses can be monitored
and measured in real time to inform on-farm decision making.
eCow: real-time rumen monitoring
Professor Toby Mottram, Founder and Chief Engineer,
eCow
The ability of ruminants (cattle, sheep, goats) to convert
otherwise inedible material (grass, straw, fruit pulp) into
human food (milk and meat) gives them a unique role in
ecological and agricultural systems. The problem for the
management of these animals is that the functioning of the
anaerobic rumen is hidden and the results of inadequate
nutrition may damage the animal's health. The rumen
telemetry bolus developed by eCow allows scientists and
nutritionists to measure the pH and temperature within the
rumen continuously. The issues to overcome in this technology have been
encapsulating robust sensors, miniaturised electronics and wireless telemetry
through the dielectric layers of rumen liquor and tissue. The data received from
boluses is now changing our understanding of how to manage the rumen
replacing invasive and dangerous sampling techniques with continuous accurate
data. This technology shows the potential for radical improvements in
productivity and health of millions of food animals based on new data capture
technology.
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