DIGITAL INNOVATION FARM TECH BOX PARK

Enabling the growth and development of Gloucestershire’s Agri-Tech businesses

+ JUST LAUNCHED

Are you an innovative SME looking to develop a product or service for the Agri-Tech sector?

Officially launched this month, Hartpury’s pioneering new Tech Box Park programme provides access to specialist, innovative workspace and free support to businesses looking to develop new or existing AgriTech products or services and help them accelerate to market.

The brand-new facility provides dedicated working space and support packages, access to Hartpury’s commercial farm, and an extended farming network for practical trials and feasibility testing across the county where businesses can explore, test, research, and develop new products, or enhance existing ones.

A PLACE, AND A SPACE FOR INNOVATION

Join existing members and entrepreneurs today!

“THE DRONEPREP TEAM HAS BEEN WORKING WITH HARTPURY AGRI-TECH TEAM TO EXPLORE HOW FARMERS CAN USE DRONES TO CREATE DIVERSIFIED INCOME FOR FARM ESTATES. IT HAS BEEN AN AMAZING ADVENTURE THUS FAR AND WE ARE INCREDIBLY EXCITED TO JOIN THE TECH BOX PARK COMMUNITY TO STRENGTHEN TIES WITH HARTPURY AND THE FARMING COMMUNITY.”

Gareth Whatmore, DronePrep/Sky-Highways Founder & CEO

Free Innovative Work Spaceavailable Now

+ TECH BOX PARK BENEFITS

Our FREE programme gives SMEs access to:

• Space for collaboration, idea generation, expertise, advice, and physical activities

• Advice and guidance from a network of Agri-Tech and Food-Tech experts

• Use of Hartpury's commercial farm and an extended farming network for practical farm trials and feasibility testing

• Farming data, research, equipment, and resources to test, refine and grow your propositions

• Your own Tech Box Park workspace unit complete with the latest technology

• A suite of support packages tailored to your specific business needs

• Hartpury’s enviable support and world-class knowledge network that includes farmers, entrepreneurs, technologists, and academics

LOOKING TO MAKE A £10K INVESTMENT IN YOUR BUSINESS?

Get £5K back via our Innovation Voucher Scheme to help your business grow

Shaping The Future Of Digital Farming

Hartpury is committed to the advancement of Agri-Tech and supports the vision of HM Government that the UK becomes a world leader in agricultural technology, innovation, and sustainability.

The Digital Innovation Farm project, home to both the £2 million Tech Box Park and £2 million Agri-Tech Centre, provides a unique opportunity for students and staff to connect with business, whether through research partnerships or work placement and employment opportunities.

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Each of our five Tech Box units provides an innovative, self-contained working space for desk-based product development and testing.

The flexible, high-tech work and demonstration space offers SMEs a unique environment to launch products to clients physically and virtually.

Our suite of business support Our fully funded 12-hour programme offers bespoke business support packages in:

 Innovation for Environmental Sustainability

 Product Development and Testing Facilities

 Field Validation and Market Testing

 Showcase Marketing and Promotion

Russell Marchant, Vice-Chancellor, Principal and CEO Hartpury University and Hartpury College

To find out more about how we can support your business, or book a tour of our facilities visit Hartpury.ac.uk/techboxpark enquiries@DIA-T.Hartpury.ac.uk | 01452 702546

A revolutionary technology developed at the University of Bristol which allows plants to harvest light more efficiently and helps biomass production is increasing crop yields.

And in March, agritech start-up Glaia secured £1 million investment from Green Angel Syndicate, the UK’s largest network of specialist investors fighting climate change.

Glaia, founded in 2019 by two former University of Bristol scientists, Dr David Benito and Dr Imke Sittel, has discovered how to supercharge crop growth without increasing greenhouse gases, using carbon-based technology that reduces farming’s climate footprint.

The £1 million investment will help the company commercialise its gamechanging carbon-based technology, the ‘sugar dots’, which reduces emissions from crops by 30 per cent when applied to the plants.

Glaia’s Chief Scientific Officer, Imke Sittel, said: “You might think billions of years of evolution had fine-tuned photosynthesis to the max – but in fact, usually less than one per cent of the sun’s rays absorbed by plants are turned into biomass.”

Electric shock treatment for weeds

RootWave Pro is a professional hand weeder for growers, gardeners and groundskeepers to spot weed and treat invasive species.

At the Port of Rotterdam, contractors Blom Hoveniers have begun their third season using Ubiquitek’s RootWave Pro hand-weeder to control outbreaks of Japanese Knotweed.

Heat created by electrical resistance within the weed results in it being boiled from the root upwards. The dead weeds can be left to decompose, which is a benefit as Japanese Knotweed waste from other methods must be removed from site and processed to avoid creating new outbreaks.

Ubiquitek is moving into a purpose-build headquarters and laboratory for research and development at Kineton later this year and will be launching products for agriculture in the next 24 months.

Plant genetics company deploys tech to create new herbicides

To keep growing food sustainably, UK farmers need better herbicides used in better ways. Without them, growers could lose half their yields and be forced to abandon regenerative practices like low and no till techniques.

The farmland would produce less and the food we eat would require more water, fertiliser and area to grow.

A spin-out from Oxford University is helping to tackle the problem. MoA Technology is a plant genetics company using its proprietary technology to help create effective new herbicides.

Applying Glaia’s new-generation biostimulants to the roots or leaves gives photosynthesis a much-needed boost, she added, increasing harvests by as much as 40 per cent without increasing fertilisers or other climate unfriendly inputs.

The technology could revolutionise the production of staple and horticultural crops, but for now the team is focusing on hydroponic tomatoes and strawberries, where they estimate the added value could initially result in a fivefold return on investment for the growers.

The objective is to expand into the EU within two years, and North America within three.

The herbicide market mirrors the antibiotic market in that there have been few new molecules developed in recent years and resistance is developing to those products on the market.

MoA Technology hopes to provide farmers with a choice of innovative technologies for weed control. It also plans to develop products that will provide sustainable and economic weed control in a broad range of crops, using naturally-occurring as well as synthetic sources, and have minimal impact on humans and the environment.

In 2019, the company secured nearly £6 million Series A round funding from The University Venture Fund, Oxford Sciences Innovation and Parkwalk Advisors.

Worcestershire salad-leaf grower invests in tech to reduce reliance on labour

Valefresco is one of the top UK growers of baby leaf lettuce and a leading UK oriental vegetable grower.

With recruiting becoming more di cult, and expensive, in the horticulture sector, the Eveshambased company has mechanised some of its picking and packing processes. Small crops lend themselves to mechanisation. Highly specialised harvesting machines cut up to two to three tonnes of leaves an hour.

But investing in new equipment is not always straightforward, says director Vito Pilade.

“Agricultural technology is field and crop specific. What can seem a good idea on paper can bring up issues in field trials,” he said.

But he points out there are opportunities to mechanise more harvesting on some of the company’s labour-intensive crops in particular.