New government funding given to innovative agri

The money will go towards creating environmentally friendly methods of growing potatoes, a robotic crop harvesting system for horticulture, and an automated system to replace cow bedding to promote health, welfare, and production.

A second round of the government’s £270 million Farming Innovation Programme’s Large R&D Partnership competition (which is funding the three aforementioned projects) is presently accepting submissions.

The government has pledged to spend £600 million over three years on grants to help farmers increase productivity, animal health and welfare, innovation, and R&D. The yearly farming budget of £2.4 billion, which has been frozen for the duration of this Parliament, will be used to pay for it.

According to Defra, the funding will aid in the delivery of long-term sustainable food production and will support farmers in their efforts to prevent and reverse the degradation of nature as outlined in the Environmental Improvement Plan.

Agri-Opencore

To expedite the implementation of robotic crop systems for horticulture, the government of the United Kingdom has allocated over £3.8 million to the Agri-Opencore project, a robotics harvesting initiative led by UK tomato producer APS Produce.

Continue reading.

Image by Freepik

Source: