This week's round-up from the Groundswell Agriculture festival. I share my reflections, pick out one of my fave talks of the show and welcome a new member in this week's vlog from Agri-TechE.

⛺ 😎 A more considered set of conversations at Groundswell this year - and Happy 10th Birthday to the Festival. Even the Secretary of State Emma Reynolds loved it!

🫶 Inspired by the session by Pasture for Life about data capture and hard metrics not always collecting and quantifying what farmers instinctively see, sense and feel. "A lack of data doesn't necessarily mean that something isn't true." A nice segue into the theme for our own #REAP2026 conference in November!

🫵 Lots of talk about the ADOPT programme (FYI Chris Lyons is your Go-To Person at Innovate UK about all things ADOPT) - this really is the way for farmers to de-risk their decisions to embrace new innovation. Great session chaired by Tom MacMillan with Lindsay Roome, Simon Pearson MBE and Bryony Gittins.

🪟 Window 1 opened of the new Sustainable Farming Incentive round. Brace yourself for the mad scramble!

📣 Welcome to a new member BionemaUk Group Limited - Groundswell was a perfect setting for the discussions about the technologies they develop and manufacture for biocontrol in agriculture.....

Plus we recorded some podcasts and did some filming which we'll be dropping over the next few weeks, but special thanks to:

David Linton | Cristóbal Uauy | Sarah Evered | Russell Batten | Louise Penn

Also a shout out to the amazing little Agri-TechE team - Kate Brunswick | Becky Dodds | Kristina Kalinina | Deryn Gant | Sophie Butler | Laura Bouvet

News, trends, and breakthroughs shaping the future of farming, brought to you by Agri-TechE.

We are a not-for-profit, independent organisation for our members. We bring together forward-thinking farmers, researchers, technologists, and agri-businesses to foster collaboration and drive impactful solutions.

https://www.agri-tech-e.co.uk/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lots of Defra news to share, plus we talk about trade-offs around global food security, and consider if high-input agriculture still make sense. Plus we welcome some of our latest new members.

This week in the Agri-TechE round-up:

📣 Defra’s been busy this week. The Farming Roadmap has landed, and we discover what the Government thinks about the 2025 Farming Profitability Review as it releases its official response. Plus £53m more investment in the Farming Innovation Partnership.

💭 Global food security is more than a multi-disciplinary challenge – the discussions being led within the University of Cambridge around resilient, healthy and sustainable food systems. We talked about the balance between diversity vs uniformity, availability vs sustainability, efficiency vs redundancy….where are the trade-offs?

❓ The Royal Norfolk Show's brilliant "Great Debate" this year asks if high-input agriculture has had its day - and kicks off with a thought-provoking ice-breaker question.......

🤖 Our colleague Becky Dodds helped bring engineering and farming together - mixed with a dash of skills discussions - future at the the AgriFoRwArdS Agri-Robotics Futures Showcase in #Lincoln

And welcome to some of our latest new members:

🥔 🍟 Diced, crinkled, curly or straight? We welcome global potato and fries grower and processor, Lamb Weston.

💡 🪴 Control your lighting and energy in glasshouses using wireless mesh – like a smart remote control and health tracker for greenhouse lights, with NETVION.

📊 🚜 A global public record for farm evidence is being built by Proof - working across enterprises, seasons, systems and outcomes. Starting with #biologicals and #biostimulants in #arable agriculture.

News, trends, and breakthroughs shaping the future of farming, brought to you by Agri-TechE.

We are a not-for-profit, independent organisation for our members. We bring together forward-thinking farmers, researchers, technologists, and agri-businesses to foster collaboration and drive impactful solutions.

https://www.agri-tech-e.co.uk/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rounding up the Agri-TechE week on farm, courtesy of Home Farm Nacton – the 43rd Demonstrator Farm for LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming).

Also this week:

- Applications open for early stage #agritech ventures to present at our Focus on Finance event (Sept 17th – all welcome).

- All eyes looking to Groundswell Agriculture – we chat to two of our members as they make their final preparations for next week’s Regenerative Ag Festival – we’ll be there, come and see us on stand M24.

- Talking financial resilience through cyber security with other business founders thanks to EY. Yikes.

News, trends, and breakthroughs shaping the future of farming, brought to you by Agri-TechE.

We are a not-for-profit, independent organisation for our members. We bring together forward-thinking farmers, researchers, technologists, and agri-businesses to foster collaboration and drive impactful solutions.

https://www.agri-tech-e.co.uk/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.