Over £9m awarded to develop cutting-edge farming technology

The AG ARC project has been awarded £2.5m towards the development of an autonomous cow cubicle bedding unit
The AG ARC project has been awarded £2.5m towards the development of an autonomous cow cubicle bedding unit

Three cutting-edge projects will receive a share of over £9 million in funding to carry out research and development on proposals to boost farming productivity.

The funding will support projects developing robotic crop harvesting for horticulture and an autonomous system to change cows’ bedding to improve productivity.

The funding, announced by Defra on Friday (24 March), will also go toward a more environmentally-friendly approach to potato cultivation.

The three projects are being supported through the Large R&D Partnership competition, which is part of the government’s £270m Farming Innovation Programme.

A second round of the competition is currently open for applications.

Farming Minister Mark Spencer said: "It’s important that we fund projects like these – and those still to come in future rounds – as we support farmers to deliver sustainable food production and protect the environment.

"Innovation, research and development will help keep the sector at the cutting edge of technology as we look into the future."

The Agri-Opencore project, led by APS Produce, has been awarded over £3.8m to accelerate the delivery of robotic crop systems for horticulture.

With labour shortages affecting the horticulture sector around the world, there are huge opportunities to reduce costs and labour requirements.

The funding will help the project create the world’s first open development platform (software and hardware) for agri-robotic crop harvesting.

The open development platform will enable multiple organisations to contribute, allowing cross-sector collaboration and demonstration of technologies on English farms.

It is hoped that the project will help to accelerate the adoption of robotic picking by two years.

Phil Pearson, from APS Produce, said: "The AGRI-OPENCORE robotics project is an exciting, and vital project for the fresh produce industry.

"It promises to deliver the significant progress required to automate fresh produce harvesting in the UK.

"As this work brings leading technology providers, Dogtooth, Xihelm and Wootzano, with the academic excellence of the University of Lincoln team, we can expect significant progress towards autonomous harvesting.

The AG ARC project, led by Garnett Farm Engineering, has been awarded over £2.5m towards the development of an autonomous cow cubicle bedding unit.

Cow comfort is a key factor in reducing the chances of cows suffering from mastitis, a fatal inflammation of their mammary gland, with dry and clean bedding and careful management of cubicles being vital.

Currently, this must be done manually by farmers, but this project will develop an intelligent robotic cubicle bedder to monitor and respond to key sensor data to optimise dispensing of bedding.

This will help to boost cow health and welfare, improve farm productivity and reduce costs through efficient use of bedding.

Andrew Garnett, of AG Products, said: "We look forward to collaborating with the University of Liverpool on this exciting project to further enhance our cattle bedding solutions to farmers, improving cow welfare and productivity.

"Our passion for innovation has seen the recent launch of the AG Duo; the AG ARC will further revolutionise the industry’s approach to cattle bedding."

The Potato-LITE project has been awarded £2,830,000 to explore optimised systems for potato cultivation.

Current systems require the soil to be cultivated to create a deep and uniform seedbed, free from stones and clods, to provide a favourable environment for potato growth.

Whilst reduced tillage technologies have enabled regenerative agriculture in cereal systems, this technology has not been developed for the production of potatoes and other root crops.