£16 million boost for agricultural innovators

Over 70 UK businesses and universities to share £16 million from government and industry to develop business ideas and boost UK agriculture.

Over 70 businesses and universities from across the UK will share £16 million from government and industry to develop 25 innovative business ideas and boost UK agriculture.

The 25 projects, worth £16 million with £9.8 million from government and £6.2 million from industry, form the third round of funding to be distributed through the £70 million Agri-Tech Catalyst, announced as part of the UK Industrial Strategy for Agricultural Technologies.

The Agri-Tech Catalyst, run by Innovate UK and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), supports collaborative research between scientists and businesses to springboard projects from the lab to the market place – speeding up the time before the farmer and public benefit.

Innovations in this round include the ‘Sunshine Egg’ – a project to help reduce vitamin D deficiency in humans by enriching naturally-laid chicken eggs with higher levels of the vitamin via chicken feed, and developing 3D camera technology to identify when broccoli is ready for harvesting – a key step towards the development of a fully automatic robotic harvesting system for the vegetable which will significantly reduce production costs.

Greg Clark, Minister for Universities, Science and Cities said:

With a growing population and more extreme climate, providing a sufficient and healthy food supply has become more important than ever, as has the need to seek out innovations of doing so.

The Agri-Tech Catalyst is helping businesses and researchers by providing valuable finance to take innovations from any sector or discipline all the way from concept to commercialisation.

Science and Environment Minister Lord de Mauley said: