ISP55 – Sensing Technologies for Digital Agriculture

Overview

Agriculture is a vitally important sector for the UK which constitutes a key supply source for the food consumption needs of the country. The agriculture sector contributes more than £13 billion to the national economy and provides approximately 1% of UK’s total employment. Crop farming produces various agricultural crops and fresh vegetables for domestic consumption and export. Livestock farming provides some key essential dairy, milk, and meat products to consumers in the UK.

As a traditional and low profit margin sector, the UK’s agriculture sector also faces a series of major challenges, such as aged farming communities, increasing environmental and sustainability challenges, NetZero (greenhouse gas emission) issues, etc. To enable the agriculture community to face these challenges, new and innovative technologies and solutions have been expected to play a key role; as a result, increasing attention is being paid to a range of novel and emerging farming practices and technological approaches, such as ‘precision agriculture’, ‘digital agriculture’, vertical farming, etc.

About the Event

Join us for the 55th Intelligent Sensing Program (ISP55 – Sensing Technologies for Digital Agriculture) event, which is an open, one-day networking workshop aimed at bringing together relevant cross-sector communities (e.g. sensing technology communities, end-user farming communities, innovators, and other agriculture-relevant stakeholders) to share knowledge, network, and develop partnerships. By stimulating new idea generation, fostering collaboration and partnerships, and promoting business innovation in sensing technologies, the event aims to address challenges in the sector and support the advancement of agriculture in the UK.

The event will host technology experts, researchers and innovators across key industries, to give talks and share their expertise & knowledge on subjects relating to the following thematic areas:

• Agriculture Market, Needs, and Opportunities for Sensing Technologies.
• State of the Art Sensing Technologies for Digital Agriculture
• Emerging and Novel Sensing Technologies for Digital Agriculture.
• Relevant Innovation Funding Opportunities in the UK.

The workshop also combines networking sessions in between presentations, and hosts limited exhibition places to enable interested organisations to showcase their relevant technologies or services at the event.

Why attend?

• Network with the sensor community, agriculture and associated industries & communities to network and develop collaboration & partnerships
• Hear insights from experts in the field and discover innovative developments of emerging sensing technologies in the agriculture sector digitalisation in the UK.

Who should attend

This event is designed for anyone involved in sensing technologies or the agriculture sector — whether you’re a developer, user, or adopter. We welcome participants from organisations of all sizes across the UK.

Our goal is to create a networking platform that connects sensor communities with agriculture and related industries. By fostering collaboration and partnerships, we aim to stimulate new ideas, drive innovation, and accelerate the development of emerging sensing technologies, supporting the digital transformation of agriculture in the UK.

Agenda

09:30: Arrival & registration
10:00: Welcome
10:05: Introduction of Innovate UK Business Connect

Market, challenges and needs

10:15: Digital Agriculture, challenges and opportunities for sensing technologies – Dr Alexander McCormack, UK Agri-Tech Centre

State of the art technologies

10:45: Agriculture products monitoring using biosensors – Martin Peacock, Zimmer & Peacock
11:15: Tea and coffee break & networking
11:45: Animal monitoring in livestock farming – Sam Hoste, Quantech Solutions (UK)
12:15: Soil mapping and analysis – Jim Bailey, PES Technologies

Novel and emerging technologies

12:45: Sentinel crop disease surveillance – Bruce Grieve/Niaz Rayan, University of Manchester
13:15 – 14:15: Lunch break and networking
14:15: Low-energy, low-cost sensors on next-generation tiny Machine Learning Devices (tinyML) for agriculture applications? – Eiman Kanjo, Imperial College London/Nottingham Trent University
14:45: Plant scouting using multispectral imaging – Joshua Kliment, Fotenix
15:15: Pollinators monitoring using acoustic sensors – Casey Woodward, AgriSound

Business innovation funding opportunities in UK

15:45: UK’s business innovation landscape & funding opportunities – Jonathan Walker, Innovation Lead, Robotics and Sensors, Innovate UK
16:15: Networking & close