More Government Investment In Agritech

• Published date: 07 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Environment, Food, Drugs, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Technology, Environmental Law, Food and Drugs Law, New Technology
• Law Firm: Marks & Clerk
• Author: Mr Robert Carpmael

With the UK's tomato and cucumber shortage being highly visible in supermarkets, it was well timed for the appropriately named Mark Spencer to announce '168 million in funding for the agritech sector for driving adoption of new technologies in the sector. The grants, when finalised later this year, are intended to be made available through the Farming Innovation Programme (FIP) and the Farming Investment Fund (FIF) - which will sit alongside the Environmental land management (ELM) schemes, and will help with the purchasing of equipment.

Seeking to focus on 'practical solutions that advance food productivity and deliver significant environmental and animal welfare benefits', we can expect to see a wide range of projects moving forwards with the help of these grants, as there should be a greater opportunity when it comes to sales.

There are many impressive start-ups working on new equipment, robots and AI technology that assist throughout the whole agriculture sector. This can be in animal welfare, such as robotic milking equipment or animal health tracking, or more simply devices for in-field entertainment of the animals, such as the back-scratcher seen in Amazon's "Clarksons Farm". It can also be in arable, through the whole plant cycle, from seed drilling, fertiliser...