Professor Simon Pearson, Director of the Lincoln Institute of Agri Food Technology (LIAT), whose Lincoln team hosts the Agtech Global programme, had the opportunity to join American colleagues from the University of Florida and industry members at a meeting hosted by UK Ambassador Peter Mandelson in Washington.

The aim was to facilitate UK-US investment and collaboration in Agtech, building on the investments being made in both countries, the world’s two largest investors in agri-tech, with an increasing share of the capital flowing from private investors.

The event focused on similar challenges, including shared ambitions to increase food production whilst meeting sustainability goals and reducing inputs.  We also have a common focus on augmenting national food security and face aligned threats from biosecurity and labour availability.

The event brought together agricultural leaders from Florida, the wider US and the UK to understand where our respective ag-tech sectors are focusing research, development and commercialisation efforts, with the aim of identifying areas where the US and UK can partner to accelerate the delivery of new technologies to benefit farmers.

Reflecting on the event, Simon commented “The US and UK agricultural sectors have a lot of common ground on industry challenges, e.g. labour supply and farm profits, with common innovation opportunities to address these challenges such as accelerating the use of robotics and AI and deploying gene editing to improve crop performance’.

Simon concluded "In Lincoln we have specialised in digital technologies for agriculture, including the use of AI and there are big opportunities to partner with the University of Florida who have invested heavily with industry in this technology.  This aligns very well with the SUSTAIN Centre for Doctoral Training, led by Lincoln, which has support for 60 industry linked PhDs in AI for agritech and we look forward to working with the US to deliver this exciting agenda’.