- Christmas is a time for family, friends, kindness and care and there is one thing that often connects us during the festive period: food
Whether you’re cooking a meal for 16, invited to a neighbour’s house for dinner or popping to the local pub for your Christmas lunch, your food has been through an incredible journey to get to you – not only on this special day – but all year round.
The UK Agri-Tech Centre is proud of the partnerships it has with farmers, scientists, business start-ups and innovators across the UK and the role they play in bringing your Christmas feast to your dinner plate.
Here are some examples of the role they play.
Roasted, mashed or new; however you present your potatoes, they are a tasty addition to any festive meal. It’s important to help protect them from pests in order for them to reach our plates.
That’s where De-Cyst comes in, a project which aims to revolutionise pest management strategies and improve on the current knowledge of solanaceous trap crops and how they are best utilised for Potato Cyst Nematodes (PCN) control by potato growers in the UK.
The UK Agri-Tech Centre, Produce Solutions, Harper Adams University, and VCS Potatoes, alongside several progressive potato growers, are working to refine and optimise trap cropping practices to unlock the full potential of DeCyst™ solanaceous trap crops, specially tailored to outmanoeuvre PCN infestations.
Whether you love it or hate it, broccoli is often a main player on the plate during the festive period. But did you know that we can do so much more with broccoli?
A project aimed at utilising unused broccoli to reduce the CO2 footprint and environmental harm of protein for human consumption is underway thanks to a partnership between the UK Agri-Tech Centre, Upcycled Plant Protein (UPP) and The James Hutton Institute (JHI).
An automated broccoli harvester uses computer vision and machine learning to identify broccoli heads that are ready to be harvested – any unused parts are turned into high-protein hypoallergenic ingredients for use in food products, including meat alternatives or ‘hybrid’ (reduced meat) products.
No Christmas dinner can be complete without the appearance of carrots and parsnips, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could store them for longer?
A project will focus on investigating new post-harvest storage practices to remove and minimise the current need for in-field storage for carrots and parsnips. In doing so, it is anticipated that the nutritional quality of both crops will be enhanced.
Leading the consortium is Vegetable Consultancy Services UK Ltd, agronomy service and research provider, in close collaboration with Frederick-Hiam Ltd, farming and fresh produce company, and The UK Agri-Tech Centre.
Hiding underneath swathes of gravy is a favourite for many UK residents, the pigs in blankets.
A big part of food production is maintaining the welfare of the animal, including in the post-weaning of piglets.
The UK Agri-Tech Centre is part of a consortium including The University of Leeds and the co-funded National Pig Centre, alongside AgriFood X, Cranswick PLC and BioPower Technologies, to develop a sustainable alternative to zinc oxide for the health and survival of post-weaning piglets.
Pests, diseases and extreme weather events are major constraints on the production of peas and beans in the UK.
Current pest and disease control methods often rely on synthetic chemical pesticides which have negative impacts on the environment and human health.
This project, ‘Legumes: Sustainable inputs for UK Legumes’, would transform traditional farm protein production by providing sustainable/climate-resistant alternatives for UK-grown legume farmers.
The partnership includes the University of Warwick, Masstock Arable (UK) Limited, Russell Bio Solutions Ltd, Fargro Limited, CABI and the UK Agri-Tech Centre.
Milk is present in more ingredients than we may think. It’s important to produce good quality, sustainable milk, whilst protecting the health and welfare of dairy cows.
The UK Agri-Tech Centre and Oxi-Tech Solutions Ltd have worked on a project demonstrating that chemical-free water disinfection can be used to replace chemicals and hot water in the robotic milking system – enabling efficiency and sustainability of dairy farming.
Ready to kick back and enjoy an ice-cold beer? There’s a lot more to where your beer came from, and the risks involved in checking the quality of the grain.
The project, ‘Advancing the boundaries of grain sampling: A robot for the autonomous, safe and representative sampling of grain bulks’, will provide farmers, grain storage operators, traders and transportation companies with a tool to obtain highly representative and verified samples at different points within grain bulks.
While current grain sampling solutions that can only reach near the surface pose a safety hazard to operators collecting the samples, Crover’s remote probing device will be able to collect samples throughout the whole shed/silo/truck/cargo.
Some see meat as the main event of a Christmas dinner and whether it’s turkey, chicken, beef, salmon or any other type of meat, technology exists to help farmers to feed their animals in the most sustainable and cost-effective manner.
The project, Novel Seaweed Chicken Feed, is a feasibility study into the viability of dulse, a highly desirable red seaweed, as a competitive alternative to soy-based chicken feed in the UK.
The key objectives for this project are to assess the energy, space, emissions and cost requirements of cultivating dulse in tanks verses at sea in order to understand the best route to successful high-yield and cost-effective production.
The partnership includes MicroGrow Systems, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), University of West London and the UK Agri-Tech Centre.
The UK wine industry faces rising labour costs, changing climate conditions, and pressure to reduce reliance on fertilisers and chemical agents.
The project, ‘Vineyard Information System for Technology and Automation’ or VISTA, is developing digital maps that will drive the shift to data-driven farming, providing an open source mapping protocol that can be used on any commercial vineyard in the UK or in the rest of the world.
The project consortium includes Antobot, Chiltern Hills, Vinescapes, Lincoln University and The UK Agri-Tech Centre.
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