Landwards Winter 2021
Practice:
Agri‐EPI Centre conference
Easing the path to technology adoption
Tim Mordan, Defra Deputy Director
The discussion was put in sharp context by the results of a survey that Agri‐EPI Centre released in the same week as the event.
He also highlighted a range of grants available to help companies and farmers innovating and investing in equipment.
It showed that 87% of farmers own at least one internet‐enabled device on the farm, and 78% use agri‐technology.
In the post‐Brexit era he said government’s aim was to use public money to provide environmental benefits.
But significantly 48% said they had patchy or no mobile reception across the farm ‐ something that could severely restrict its ability to use location and guidance tools.
It also wanted to ensure a thriving and resilient farming sector which had a ’trusting and productive’ relationship with government, and to ensure UK farmers maintained world class animal welfare standards:
Support for the challenges
“Government is serious about getting behind innovation in the farming sector. Could we free up the regulations regarding gene editing? As a first step we want to make it easier for researchers to carry out that work.”
In his key note speech – and during the following seminars ‐ Tim Mordan, a deputy director at Defra, gave a clear hint that research on gene editing might be allowed in future.
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New technology needs to be simple, easy to use and offer farmers proven benefits if it is to be widely adopted. That was the broad consensus from the Agri-EPI Centre’s autumn conference, which was held virtually recently.
The new ELMS scheme aims to reward farmers for protecting the environment, and includes a sustainable farming initiative; schemes to aid local nature recovery and enhance landscape recovery. Labour availability remained a key issue, he added: “We need to encourage more people into the industry. That is not easy and we need more help from the industry itself. We want farming to be an exciting career.” He expected the launch of the Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture (TIAH), an industry initiative to address the issue which the Government will fund: “That will be looking at things like supply chains and fairness, to ensure margins are spread evenly.”
