£24m boost to efficiency of UK farming sector

A range of projects to help the UK farming sector become more efficient have been awarded their share of £24 million from the UK Government.

The nine projects include work to develop robots for picking and packing fruit, work to improve vertical farming technologies, a system to turn carbon dioxide into a sustainable animal feed, and development of a new growth material to improve crop yields.

The carbon dioxide project, which will receive more than £2million, at Drax Power’s power station in Selby, North Yorkshire, aims to turn carbon dioxide into animal feed with minimal water usage and without the need for arable farmland.

It is hoped the feed will provide an alternative to soy and fishmeal, and retail giant Sainsbury’s and the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre are working to integrate it into the fish and poultry supply chains.

Another project, led by potato company Branston’s agri-technology division, B-hive in Lincoln, aims to develop and test a system to measure average potato tuber sizes and yield throughout fields, to allow selective harvesting to take place and optimise yields.

It is hoped the technology in the project could generate a 5-10% increase in the UK’s marketable potato production.

Meanwhile, a project led by Quality Milk Management Services in Bath aims to develop precision technologies to help dairy farmers access real-time data to ensure their farm is as productive, efficient and environmentally friendly as possible.

“It’s great to see investment in these outstanding ideas, which will help us tackle the farming industry’s greatest challenges, from achieving net-zero emissions to investing in sustainable alternative protein for animal feed,” said Farming Minister Victoria Prentis.

“Farming has never before been at the centre of such exciting and forwardlooking innovations.”

Science Minister Amanda Solloway said the projects represented the future of farming.

Improving potato production is the focus of one project