UK Agri-Tech Centre Launched to Spearhead Innovation and Sustainability in Agriculture

The new UK Agri-Tech Centre was formally inaugurated by Innovate UK’s CEO, Indro Mukherjee on 2nd April 2024. Innovate UK is the UK’s national innovation agency. The venture supports business-led innovation in all sectors, technologies, and UK regions and helps businesses grow through the development and commercialization of new products, processes, and services, supported by an outstanding innovation ecosystem that is agile, inclusive, and easy to navigate.

This follows last September’s announcement that three agri-tech centres were joining forces to create a new integrated facility. These are:

• Agricultural Engineering, Precision, and Innovation Centre (Agri-EPI)

• Crop Health and Protection (CHAP)

• Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL)

This centre will mainly: broaden access to agri-tech opportunities, drive development and business growth, and help the sector reach even greater heights. It receives its core funding from Innovate UK, which is led by CEO Phil Bicknell and a newly appointed executive leadership team.

Speaking at the launch event at the Midlands Agri-Tech Innovation Hub, Harper Adams University, Newport, Indro Mukerjee, CEO, of Innovate UK said, “As the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK works to support innovative businesses, particularly start-ups and SMEs, through their growth journeys. Agritech is an important sector with forty times the number of startups, record levels of private capital invested over the last decade, and the potential to develop further. The creation and launch of the UK Agri-Tech Centre will be an important step in developing that potential and will support the agritech businesses to start up, scale up and develop internationally.”

Stella Peace, Executive Director for Healthy Living and Agriculture said, “Agritech is a lifeline for our planet and our people. The launch of the UK Agri-Tech Centre marks a pivotal moment for the UK, where we have the opportunity to deliver a greater impact on the sector and the UK economy. For those leading, and working in the centre, this is an opportunity to pioneer a new era of innovation and impact.”

Dr Peter Quinn, Chair of the Board of the UK Agri-Tech Centre said, “Becoming the UK Agri-Tech Centre increases our ability to implement innovation at speed to solve the increasing challenges in our food systems for the long term. The challenges ahead require a technology pipeline of innovative solutions and applications to combat climate change and feed a growing worldwide population. The creation of the new UK Agri-Tech Centre is an important step to ensure food security for the future. One of the major benefits of the new Centre is that we have the best people with expert inter-disciplinary skills from all sectors, working collaboratively to develop and deploy new technology. We combine deep scientific and technology specialisms with general business acumen to commercialize innovation and increase market adoption across the agri-food sector.”

The UK Agri-Tech Centre will make the most of the phenomenal opportunity to use science and innovation to lead and guide transformational change for the sector, for the benefit of humanity and the planet.

(Source: Official website UKRI)