09 September 2015
Smart Ag – ‘Bringing Multiple Disciplines Together’
The need for ‘multiple disciplines to come together to explore innovations and develop
applications’ for the future benefit of food and farming was a core message at the centre of
the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s (AHDB) Smart Agriculture Conference
held on Tuesday 8 September at Birmingham’s ICC.
A first for AHDB, the inaugural event was conceived to bring together academics and
experts working across data, sensors and application to beg the question, how can we use
innovations from other industries and disciplines to boost, improve and facilitate agriculture?
AHDB Chairman, Peter Kendall, on opening the conference explained how he felt
passionately that “AHDB had a central role to play in bringing together experts from a broad
brush of specialisms to address and meet the needs of a rapidly changing industry.”
He went on to reiterate that this approach wouldn’t work in isolation, “Smart Agriculture is
where it all begins, exploring all avenues, possibilities and innovations in order for British
agriculture to be as productive and as efficient it can be in order to compete with the rest of
the world.”
Recognising the need to look further afield than the agriculture industry, the Smart Ag
conference programme offered up an international crowd of speakers from disciplines
ranging from quantum imaging, informatics and metrics, emergent computing and robotics.
Keynote speaker Professor Salah Sukkarieh, from the Australian Centre for field robotics,
University of Sydney, highlighted how smart technologies were already being used in
agricultural practices across Australia, but emphasised that developments from other
industries offered valuable applications: “We’re already seeing intelligent software systems
for autonomous decision making in commercial aviation, stevedoring, mining and
environmental management and its potential for use in other areas.”
“Over the next five years we’ll start to see more robots on the farm, giving us greater crop
intelligence for the grower.”
Echoing the sentiment, Peter Kendall said: “Farming is on the cusp of an agricultural
revolution. Growing and rearing food is already becoming more reliant on precision
technologies and farmers will increasingly use technology for every step of the production
process. The challenge is to embrace these advances and meet the needs of this rapidly
changing industry. Today’s conference will help kick start this process.”
As well as a diverse programme of speakers, the event also included an exhibitor hall with
Bayer Crop Science, ADAS, Stockbridge Technology Centre, Farmex, Innovate UK, H L
Hutchinson Ltd, Eurotech, Bristol Robotics Lab, Precision Decisions and BBSRC/NERC. A
networking session facilitated by the Knowledge Transfer Network was also held.
The full list of speakers, presentations and video will be available at
www.smartag.ahdb.org.uk
Ends
Note to Editors:
Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board: AHDB is a UK-wide Non-Departmental
Public Body sponsored by Defra and primarily funded by farmers, growers and others in the
supply chain through statutory levies. Established in 2008, it supports the following
industries: meat and livestock (cattle, sheep and pigs) in England; horticulture, milk and
potatoes in Great Britain; and cereals and oilseeds in the UK. The AHDB’s remit covers 75
per cent of total UK agricultural output. Further information on AHDB can be found at
http://www.ahdb.org.uk/.
For further information contact Charlotte Corner, AHDB Communications Manager, on
024 7647 8880 or charlotte.corner@ahdb.org.uk.