A multi-million-pound hub for the development, testing and sharing of technologies to boost productivity in farming and the food supply chain has opened in the Midlands, following Innovate UK investment.
Agri-EPI Centre (
www.agri-epicentre.com) has developed the £4.4 million R&D facility in close partnership with Harper Adams University.
Located on the university’s campus in Shropshire, the hub will bring together researchers, technology and engineering companies and food businesses, from farmers through to retailers.
A priority for the new hub is to encourage farmers to take up innovative technologies. It will explore how robotics, lasers, sensors and satellite technology can benefit farmers, such as robots that can pick soft fruit or lasers that can target individual weeds in a field without using pesticides or causing any damage to the crop.
Such technologies are being researched by Harper Adams and others in conjunction with industry partners, to be tested further through the Agri-EPI Centre network.
The hub was officially opened at the end of November by Sam Gyimah, the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation.
He said: “From picking soft fruits using robots to treating crops using lasers and avoiding harmful pesticides, the innovations being considered by Agri-EPI Centre will revolutionise farming as we know it and make it more profitable than ever before.”
Dave Ross, Agri-EPI Centre chief executive, said: “The Midlands hub is one of four ground-breaking facilities we will be running in the UK to push forward new thinking and technologies that can boost the productivity, sustainability and profitability of the agri-food industry.”