Cereals

By Harry Langford, Innovation Director at the UK Agri-Tech Centre, who shares his thoughts on the event.The Northern CEA Symposium brought together growers, researchers, technologists and agri-tech businesses in Sheffield with a shared focus on turning innovation in controlled environment agriculture into solutions for commercial growers. Across the day, presentations explored practical challenges facing the sector, from nutrient efficiency and water use to substrates, sensing and circular inputs. The emphasis was consistently on application, including how technologies might reduce costs, improve control, and operate reliably in real production environments. New approaches to sensing and monitoring were discussed as a way to give operators clearer, faster feedback on crop performance, helping them make decisions with greater confidence. Substrate innovation also featured, reflecting growing pressure to move beyond traditional materials while maintaining consistency at scale. Alongside this, approaches to reduce the energy footprint of CEA were tabled and their economics explored. What stood out was the openness of the community, with speakers acknowledging the need for further testing, integration and validation, reinforcing the importance of environments where technologies can be trialled under realistic conditions and assessed against commercial priorities. Our involvementThe UK Agri-Tech Centre took part in the symposium, organised by UK Urban AgriTech and the University of Sheffield, to share how we support CEA innovation through test, trial and demonstration and how our new Greenhouse to Global programme is supporting innovative CEA technologies to scale. Too often, promising technologies struggle to move beyond pilot scale because they lack credible, independent evidence of performance in commercially representative environments. We outlined how our programme supports SMEs working across sensing, substrates, lighting and control and how we are testing these technologies together to produce commercial case studies for specific industry use cases. The companies we spotlightedThrough the ACDC spinach production case study, we showcased how Ostara, Fotenix and Vertically Urban are working together to address core challenges in vertical farming: consistent quality, reduced energy use and reduced labour costs. The case study collectively illustrates how integrated control, crop monitoring and tuneable lighting can support more responsive, dataled growing decisions, saving 25% in energy use. We also featured GyroPlant and its substrate-free approach, overviewing the work that we have done with them on both leafy green production and strawberry propagation, to reduce the reliance on unsustainable substrates whilst maintaining performance at commercial scale. Throughout the day, the research and development presented demonstrated how collaboration can help CEA innovation progress from early ideas into solutions that can be adopted across the sector. Alongside the technical discussions, UK Urban AgriTech also used the symposium to float a thought-provoking idea: the potential for a cross-CEA umbrella organisation that better represents the full breadth of controlled environment production in the UK. The concept was framed around bringing together sectors, from crops to mushrooms, insects and seaweed, to improve knowledge transfer and engage more proactively with policy development. Again, this reiterates the importance of the sector working together to maximise the potential of CEA in the UK. If you would like to work with the UK Agri-Tech Centre, get in touch at [email protected]

26/03/2026 -

The UK Agri-Tech Centre has worked with agri-tech businesses to test and trial their technologies to address the challenges of water quality and management on-farm and across the agri-industry. Safe water production and protection are closely tied to soil health, which in turn underpins our food and energy systems. The UK Agri-Tech Centre has collaborated with a range of innovative partners on projects that address this challenge directly.Below are three initiatives working to safeguard and sustain safe water: STREAMS (Space Tech for River Environments & Agricultural Monitoring Sensors)Diffuse nutrient pollution remains one of the most significant pressures facing Welsh waterways, with well-known rivers such as the Teifi repeatedly falling short of phosphate standards. These pressures have lasting consequences for our landscapes, affecting biodiversity, land use and the long-term resilience of rural communities. Real-time water quality monitoring has the potential to speed up mitigation efforts, yet traditional sensors often carry prohibitive costs, and many rural locations lack the reliable connectivity required for automated data transfer. As a result, manual water sampling remains commonplace, which can miss short-term pollution spikes and delay timely intervention.The Innovate UK-funded STREAMS project aims to overcome these challenges, by making water-quality monitoring more affordable, reliable and continuous, even in the most remote areas of rural Wales. Project lead, Lacuna Space, is working with Aberystwyth University and the UK Agri-Tech Centre to combine three core innovations:A low-cost multiparameter sensor capable of measuring nitrates, phosphates, dissolved oxygen, pH and other key indicators of river healthLacuna’s LoneWhisper® satellite-IoT Technology, enabling sensors to transmit data without the need for network connectivityA bilingual Welsh–English dashboard, co-designed with end users, delivering clear, real-time insights for farmers, land managers, community groups and environmental professionalsWorking alongside local authorities, environmental regulators, regional communities and land users, the project will host bilingual workshops and engagement events to co-develop tools, evaluate sensor performance, refine the dashboard and ensure STREAMS delivers tangible value in practice. While STREAMS is grounded in Wales, the challenges it addresses are global: many water challenges are due to poor connectivity, making monitoring impossible.But Lacuna’s connectivity is making monitoring possible anywhere in the world and the team is already in conversation with partners as far afield as Brazil, exploring how the technology could support freshwater quality improvement on a global scale. By demonstrating the model locally first, Wales is establishing itself as a leader in satellite-enabled environmental monitoring and contributing to cleaner, healthier rivers for communities around the world. Interested in getting involved? Watch this space for updates on upcoming engagement events across the Ceredigion region. NURSE (Nutrient Utilisation and Recovery through Supercritical Extraction)The NURSE project is led by a consortium including Kairos Carbon Limited (lead), Cranfield University, Royal Agricultural University and the UK Agri-Tech Centre, forming part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK. The project seeks to develop an advanced hydrothermal technology for processing livestock waste — recovering the valuable nutrients it contains, producing a carbon-negative, non-leaching fertiliser, and separating carbon for permanent sequestration.The UK generates around 140 million tonnes of livestock waste each year, the majority of which is spread directly onto farmland. By stripping out carbon prior to land application, the project aims to deliver meaningful emissions reductions. Currently, less than 50% of applied nutrients, such as phosphorus, are taken up by crops when livestock waste is used as fertiliser.At the same time, fertiliser costs for farmers continue to rise while key resources, including phosphorus, face long-term depletion. By developing a non-leaching fertiliser that enables greater nutrient uptake by plants, the project aims to help keep costs manageable for farmers while reducing resource waste. Equipping farmers with new tools to recover and reuse valuable nutrients while simultaneously reducing environmental impacts is central to the project’s mission.The technology delivers direct benefits by recovering critical materials from livestock waste in a concentrated form, for use as a low-leaching, sustainable fertiliser that can lower input costs and improve yields. It also enables more effective waste management and processing, the breakdown of organic pollutants, and the extraction of carbon for capture and storage all within an energy-neutral system. Kairos aims to reduce emissions from UK agriculture while preventing pollutants and nutrients from entering watercourses, and to tackle air pollution arising from livestock waste and other agricultural sources. NTPlus2The NTPlus and NTPlus2 projects are led by Agua DB, specialists in ion exchange technology, in collaboration with the UK Agri-Tech Centre. The goal is to develop a modular, integrated solution for recovering nutrients from wastewater and removing the technical barriers standing in the way of commercialisation. The NTPlus technology generates high-nitrate irrigation water, low-nitrate drinking water, and converts potash into sulphate of potash, boosting crop resilience against drought, stress, disease and pests.Agua DB’s approach targets the so-called ‘Nitrate Timebomb’ by capturing nitrates that would otherwise leach into aquifers, transforming them into a valuable input for farmers. This process enhances water quality while also supporting more efficient irrigation and greenhouse growing practices, making agriculture better equipped to withstand the effects of climate change.NTPlus2 builds on this foundation by extending the recovery process to include phosphates at wastewater treatment plants. It will also trial the novel application of plasma technology to break down persistent organics, including herbicides and pesticides, while generating additional green nitrate in the output. The project’s overarching aim is to optimise the recovery of nitrate and phosphate from wastewater treatment plants, improve sludge properties and produce a liquid fertiliser that will be demonstrated and validated through crop trials. This will support commercial adoption and integration into the liquid fertiliser supply chain.Rebecca Lewis, Head of Bid Development at the UK Agri-Tech Centre, said: “These projects show just some of the range of exciting innovations that are being developed to help deliver more resilient and healthy water systems. Technology can play a key role in securing a sustainable water resource for farms, ecosystems and communities.”For more information about the UK Agri-Tech Centre and the agri-tech businesses and projects we support, get in touch at [email protected].To explore how water innovation can be advanced further, visit Innovate UK’s Cross-Sector Water Innovation Network at https://iuk-business-connect.org.uk/programme/cross-sector-water-innovation-network/.

20/03/2026 -

Agri‑tech businesses today face a defining moment: the sector is ready for AI‑powered tools, but only the solutions backed by robust field data, end-user trust and commercial proof will break through. Messium’s story shows how that breakthrough happens. As we mark UK Tech Week 2026, much of the national discussion focuses on how artificial intelligence can accelerate innovation and productivity. For farmers, this means looking for practical, trusted tools that help them make good decisions under pressure.The UK Agri‑Tech Centre provides support to agri-tech businesses who want to develop just those kinds of innovations, helping these businesses to commercialise their tested solutions. The journey of Messium, a company using hyperspectral satellite imagery and AI to guide nitrogen management, shows how this support translates into real‑world impact. It’s also a familiar challenge for many agri-tech businesses: strong science and a great concept, but the need to validate the effectiveness of their solution and to scale quickly, reliably and with the end-user at the core.When Messium joined the UK Agri‑Tech Centre Community, their technology already worked well in early trials, but it still needed to scale for use across real farms. Their sampling‑based nitrogen recommendations worked well, but they needed to shift to a satellite‑driven model suitable for commercial deployment. This is where agri-tech businesses often get stuck, not because the tech fails, but because it needs real farm data to mature. Unlocking Messium’s next phase of growthTo help accelerate Messium’s transition, the UK Agri‑Tech Centre provided multi‑site trials, expert data collection and direct farmer feedback. These activities allowed Messium to validate their AI models at pace while refining a farmer‑friendly interface. In practice, this meant faster testing with lower risk involving farmers at every stage. It also opened doors to key partners, including Frontier and the Centre’s robotics and AI specialists, helping position the technology for wider adoption. Trials, data and measurable progressThe first season of trials ran in 2025, an extremely dry year that constrained nitrogen application windows and limited the range of recommendations that could be validated. But despite the challenging conditions, the trials delivered the ground‑truth data Messium needed.Their technology progressed quickly:Nitrogen recommendations moved from early testing to use on working farmsSatellite models reached >85% accuracy compared to lab samplesAn interface farmers could easily use was co-developed with the UK Agri‑Tech Centre networkThese are the signals investors and partners look for: performance in the field, not just in a lab, and a product farmers can actually use.For farmers involved in the trials, the technology offered something increasingly valuable: timely, evidence‑based nitrogen decisions without relying on labour‑intensive sampling. Even in a constrained season, it provided clarity at moments when application windows were exceptionally tight. Driving commercial readiness and expansionThis technical progress helped Messium secure a £3.3 million investment round, expand their engineering and operations teams and build the commercial partnerships they needed to scale. Strong field data and farmer feedback don’t just improve the product, they unlock investment.Messium are now working with Frontier to onboard 30–60 more UK farmers, and Hutchinson’s agronomists have committed to bringing 100 farmers into the programme. That means more fields, more seasons and faster learning, the foundation for reliable scale‑up.Additional collaborations are emerging with organisations such as Hutchinsons, Syngenta, Bayer, Mondelez and Weetabix. Messium have also been recognised by the European Space Agency as the UK/EU champion for agricultural hyperspectral imaging, credibility they say was strengthened through their consortium, including the UK Agri‑Tech Centre. What began as a UK-led development journey is now shaping nitrogen decisions globally.Internationally, Messium now operates across France, Australia, New Zealand and North America, with further trial expansion planned for 2026. What this means for agri-tech businessesMessium’s experience highlights what many AI-focused agri-tech businesses need but often struggle to access:High‑quality, multi‑site field data to train and validate modelsA farmer network to ensure products meet real operational needsTechnical expertise to manage data quality, interoperability and trial designCredibility and visibility when seeking investment or building partnershipsThe UK Agri-Tech Centre supports agri-tech businesses to move further, faster with less risk. By giving agri-tech businesses access to farms, data, expertise and networks, we help turn emerging technologies into market‑ready tools. Making AI an everyday farming toolFor Messium, the next stage is all about scaling responsibly. They are refining their recommendations engine to allow farmers to choose between profit‑optimised and environmentally‑optimised guidance. They are onboarding additional satellite providers for greater resilience. And, through the UK Agri‑Tech Centre, they are beginning to expand into new crops, including barley, with future potential in oilseed rape and maize. More crops mean more value across the rotation.Ultimately their aim is to make AI‑powered nitrogen management a reliable, disruptive and globally scalable solution.This UK Tech Week, Messium’s journey shows how AI in agriculture is no longer experimental. This is one example among many. With the right support, more agri-tech businesses can turn proven ideas into practical tools farmers rely on every day. What could your technology achieve?To get involved with the UK Agri-Tech Centre, get in touch at [email protected].

19/03/2026 -

What agri-tech developers need to hear from the farmers who use their tools.Technology succeeds when it works reliably, affordably and without making someone’s job harder. That was the clear message that came out of day three of the UK Agri-Tech Centre Growth Week, where we sat down with Somerset farmers Rob Addicott and Jeremy Padfield, along with Dr Annie Rayner from FAI Farms, for an honest conversation about what it takes to make agri-tech work in the field.With decades of combined experience trialling, adopting and sometimes rejecting new tools across mixed farming systems, Rob and Jeremy offered the kind of perspective that no laboratory or product roadmap can replicate. Annie brought more than 20 years of scientific expertise and a deep understanding of regenerative systems to the conversation. Together, they gave us a vitally important discussion about what the industry too often misses. Start with the farmer, not the technologyWhen asked what ‘fit for farm’ means to them, the answers were immediate and practical.Relevance, said Rob. Technology that’s designed for the work being done on farm, not retrofitted from a research context.Reliability and affordability said Jeremy.User-centred design, said Annie. Tools shaped around the people and context they’re built for from the start.Rob captured a common frustration: “Often technology comes on the farm, and it’s been developed without thought for farmers and how they would use it. And obviously then people are going to be slow to take it up.”The key:Get on farm earlyAsk questionsInvolve another farmerAs Rob put it, farmers will always listen to other farmers. If they know a peer has been part of developing a tool, it carries weight that no research paper or pitch deck can match. The tech that sticks is the tech that disappears into the workflowWhen asked to name technology that had genuinely made a difference, Jeremy pointed to a cross-make vehicle telematics system that tracks all farm machinery in real time, now accessible via a phone app. It tells him where every trailer is during silage, tracks fuel efficiency and records jobs automatically, even when someone forgets to log them.Its strength isn’t the data. It’s the fact that nobody has to think about it; expecting all staff to manually log data is unrealistic.The technology that gets adopted is the kind that removes friction, not the kind that adds it. Rob echoed this principle through another example: automatic weighing platforms for beef cattle, positioned at their water drinkers. Animals are weighed multiple times a day without being run through a crush. Health alerts are flagged automatically, which gives farmers a level of daily insight that would previously have required significant time and stress for both the farmer and the animals. The three questions every farmer asksWhen new technology lands on farm, Rob and Jeremy described a set of questions running through their minds:Will it actually work for us?Can we afford it and will it pay back?Can our team, not just the tech-savvy ones, actually use it?“In order for it to roll out on mainstream agriculture, it needs to be able to stack up financially”, Jeremy said. This is often where promising ideas stall because the business case hasn’t been thought through with the end user in mind.Rob looks for value beyond the financial:Does it add to soil health?Does it support animal welfare?Does it improve the quality of life for him and for his team?These concerns are central to whether technology is adopted at a time when farms face significant pressure. The importance of interoperabilityOne of the most consistent frustrations was interoperability, or the lack thereof. Jeremy described a drone system that could identify individual weeds in a field with real precision, potentially allowing just 10% of a field to be sprayed rather than the whole area. Environmentally and economically, it was the right tool, but the drone software couldn’t talk to the sprayer. When they approached the sprayer manufacturer, the company decided they wanted to build the mapping function themselves rather than collaborate and the opportunity was lost.Annie named a related issue from the supply chain side: data collected by different technologies often can’t be compared or shared across different parts of the supply chain, even when everyone is theoretically reporting on the same thing. The result is that farmers end up navigating multiple platforms, relearning systems with each new machine and managing data that can’t flow where it needs to go.Rob’s wish for the year ahead is a piece of software that allows different technologies to talk to each other. It’s a deceptively simple ask, and one the industry hasn’t yet managed to deliver at scale. What good on-farm trials look likeWhen the conversation turned to on-farm trials and demos, Rob, Jeremy and Annie were aligned: short trials don’t build confidence.A month or two of testing tells you very little about how something will perform across seasons, soil types and weather patterns. Regenerative approaches in particular need to be evaluated over 12 months or more. Demonstrations also need to span a variety of farm types. Farmers watching a demo need to be able to see themselves in it. If the trial is on a completely different scale or soil type, the lesson doesn’t travel, if the technology looks complicated to operate, people walk away before they’ve given it a chance. Tools that help farmers thriveRob shared a compelling example of what technology can achieve when it’s genuinely designed around farming needs. During a difficult autumn last year, they trialled a product to improve soil microbial activity alongside crop establishment. Where the product was used, establishment was noticeably better, and on the trial plots nitrogen input was reduced by around 65%.For Annie, positive animal welfare is one of the most promising and underexplored areas for agri-tech innovation. Rather than framing welfare as harm reduction, the approach she described is about creating conditions for animals to genuinely flourish and finding technologies that support that holistically, alongside improvements to soil health, farmer wellbeing and environmental outcomes. It maps closely onto the regenerative principles that the whole group were working towards.Rob and Jeremy were clear that technology should be positioned as a complement to farming knowledge, not a replacement for it. When framed correctly, as something that frees the farmer to focus on the bigger picture, adoption follows far more naturally. Key takeaways for agri-tech developersInvolve farmers from day one as co-developers. Peer credibility drives adoption.Design for the whole team, not just the tech-savvy. If not everyone on farm can use it, it won’t be used.Be upfront about costs. Build a credible ROI case before you arrive on farm.Prioritise integration. Integration is not optional.Run long, diverse trials. Span farm types, soils and seasons.Communicate technology value as time and focus gained, not complexity added.How the UK Agri-Tech Centre helps you become farm-readyBecoming farm-ready takes real-world testing and honest farmer feedback. We support businesses across the agri-food supply chain to validate and scale with:Testbeds that reflect the diversity of UK farming systemsFarmer networks and end-user insight to shape genuine market fitData validation to ensure your evidence holds up to scrutinyProgrammes like FASTA and our Agri-Tech Solution Sprints to help businesses move from technical challenge to commercial opportunityListen to the full podcast If you’re building something with real potential and want to make sure it works where it matters most, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch at [email protected].

10/03/2026 -

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