Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Innovate UK Business Connect, and partners invite innovative solutions that leverage Earth Observation (EO) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance the sustainability, resilience, and productivity of agriculture in the UK and its associated value chains. These solutions should address challenges across pre-farm gate or post-farm gate, or within the agri-finance and insurance sectors, using EO and AI to improve efficiency, manage risk, and support informed decision-making. The goal is to develop commercially viable products that are accessible to end users and deliver actionable insights, enabling the agri-food sector to respond to environmental pressures while maintaining economic viability.
Defra’s EO team, in collaboration with Innovate UK Business Connect, Satellite Applications Catapult (SAC), Growth Studio, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Telespazio will be hosting a three-day in-person sprint event taking place at Cloth Hall Court, University of Leeds (13-15 Jan 2026). This will be followed by a 6-week incubation period. These activities form part of the GeoAI Festival, a series of activities bringing together innovators, businesses, academics, end users, and public bodies to explore and advance the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in geospatial applications using EO data.
Participants will be challenged to combine EO data, both public and commercial, with other datasets and apply AI tools to develop concepts for innovative, commercially viable, products. Teams will be expected to develop novel products with a clear customer in mind while ensuring they aren’t reinventing the wheel. Solutions must be cloud-native and software-only.
All selected teams will have the opportunity to showcase their prototypes at Space Comm Europe, 4-5 March 2026 in London.
This opportunity invites applicants to develop solutions in response to targeted challenge statements under the theme “Resilient and Sustainable Agrifood Systems”, focusing on how EO and AI can improve UK agriculture’s productivity, sustainability, and financial resilience. See below for a full list of challenge statements: proposed solutions must align with at least one of these.
Two further challenge areas are available: “Unlocking Nature-Based Markets with EO & AI” and “Next-Gen Spatial Planning: GeoAI Solutions for Land, Ocean, and Climate”. You are welcome to apply to multiple challenge areas.
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This opportunity is open to innovators who want to use earth observation and geospatial data in combination with artificial intelligence to produce innovative prototypes. This includes innovators, start-ups, SMEs, large organisations, universities, Research Technology Organisations (RTOs), and end users.
Government participants are welcome as mentors or facilitators, but not as competing teams.
Collaborative proposals are welcome, and collaborations may also be formed during the sprint event.
All participating organisations must be UK-registered entities. International collaborations are permitted where the main applicant is a UK-based entity.
We are particularly keen to receive applications from SMEs that already have a product and want to use the 6-week programme to undertake experimental development, de-risk the testing of a new product line, explore access to new markets, develop new business models, or add new services to an existing product.
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Good agriculture and land stewardship are fundamental to both economic development and environmental resilience. However, these sectors face mounting challenges ranging from climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource scarcity (water, soil degradation, fertility loss) to labour and skills shortages. EO technologies offer transformative potential across the agricultural value chain, from crop monitoring and resource optimisation, to supply chain traceability, carbon auditing, biodiversity impact assessment, and financial risk modelling. These technologies can empower a wide range of stakeholders, including agribusinesses, insurers, banks, public and private research organisations and potentially farmers and landowners, to make better decisions, reduce environmental impact, and enhance efficiency. Participants are invited to harness EO and other complimentary capabilities such as AI to develop innovative, effective, and scalable solutions that address these real-world challenges.
Some intended outcomes include:
- Smarter decisions through timely insights.
- Greater confidence in nature and carbon credits.
- Maximising the benefits of land management interventions.
- Transparent nature impact verification tools.
- Enhanced supply chain accountability.
- Improved risk modelling for insurers.
- Informed investment in rural resilience.
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Solutions to the below challenge statements should be applicable across a variety of real-world scenarios, including different weather conditions, terrains, within the operational context spanning pre-farm gate to post-farm gate applications.
Pre farm gate
- How to monitor crops to improve resource efficiency and sustainable nutrition, including precision irrigation?
- How to monitor crop health so that we can optimise use of plant protection products and inform grazing regimes?
- How to measure primary production (e.g., crop yield or biomass), without placing a data collection burden on smallholder farmers, so that we can generate data that is accurate, shareable, and actionable for decisions making?
Post farm gate
- How to contribute to better nature impact reporting regarding supply chain traceability by enabling the verification of nature impacts and ethical sourcing claims against a reliable baseline; supporting life cycle assessment outputs related to water usage, pollution, and biodiversity and reducing the cost of data collection and verification? This must align to geolocation data to ensure alignment with nature reporting schemes.
- How to verify that supply chains for high-risk commodities (e.g., palm oil, soy, timber) comply with biodiversity-responsible sourcing and align with regulatory definitions and metrics (e.g., EU Deforestation Regulation, TNFD)?
- How to move from emissions modelling to direct measurement so that we might detect short-lived, high-intensity methane from sites such as waste facilities or large livestock farms, and provide near-real-time hotspot monitoring to support business impact reporting?
Agricultural finance, insurance, and risk management
- How to model and manage financial exposure to environmental risks (e.g., flooding, drought, fire) to improve asset valuation and insurance premium accuracy?
- How to support spatial planning so that we can optimise land use for food production, ecosystem resilience and connectivity, and nature-based solutions, and track the impacts of these changes over time?
There are also a number of cross-cutting challenge areas to consider:
- How to combine EO data with other data types?
- How to make product interfaces accessible to the desired market while avoiding jargon?
- How to suitably present uncertainty to provide trusted outputs?
- How to demonstrate the product has a good return on investment?
- If it is a novel product, how would you validate demand?
- How to utilise AI tools to reduce workflows?
- Where can EO reduce the need for manual surveys while maintaining accuracy?
- How to enable end-users with limited EO skills and tools to use outputs effectively?
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Successful teams will be invited to participate in the GeoAI Build and Pitch programme, taking place between January and March 2026.
The GeoAI Build and Pitch programme offers a unique opportunity to collaborate directly with Defra, AWS, SAC, Growth Studio, Telespazio, Space Comm and other leading organisations. Participants will receive expert mentorship, access to rich EO datasets, and cloud computing credits to accelerate product development. All participating teams will have the opportunity to showcase their prototypes at Space Comm Europe, with the top 5 teams invited to pitch at the Downstream Theatre during the event.
All selected teams will:
- Receive expert mentorship from leading organisations including Defra, AWS, SAC, Growth Studio, Innovate UK Business Connect (IUKBC), Space Comm and others.
- Receive access to credits for cloud computing services for the duration of the GeoAI Build and Pitch programme.
- Have access to a wide range of EO datasets.
- Participate in a 6-week development phase featuring workshops on value proposition design, business modelling, and pitch development, delivered by Growth Studio.
- Showcase their prototype at Space Comm through a technical presentation in a co-hosted showcase area.
- Be included in the final GeoAI Festival report and communications.
- Gain visibility across all partner networks and broader audience at Space Comm.
- Network with a diverse range of stakeholders and partners.
Top 5 winners will:
- Receive tailored Commercialisation Credits redeemable against SAC’s Space Commercialisation Engine valued at up to £80k per company. These credits will support teams in developing market ready products and preparing for future funding opportunities.
- Be shortlisted to pitch at Space Comm 2026 in a dedicated showcase session at the Downstream Theatre, part of one of the UK’s leading space and tech events.
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- Launch of the Build and Pitch Programme: 15 October 2025
- Deadline for applications: 9 November 2025
- Application assessment period: 11 November 2025 – 21 November 2025
- Selection and notification of finalists: 25 November 2025
- GeoAI Build and Pitch Sprint event at Cloth Hall Court, University of Leeds: 13 – 15 January 2026
- GeoAI Build and Pitch Business Development Workshops delivered by Growth Studio: 21 January 2026, 28 January 2026, 4 February 2026, 11 February 2026 (may be subject to change)
- Submission video pitch and deck: Due in February 2026
- GeoAI Festival Showcase at Space Comm Europe: 4 and 5 March 2026
- Pitch Event at Space Comm Europe (selected participants only): 4 March 2026
- Technical Support Drop-in Sessions: Weekly throughout January and February 2026
For further info, including terms and conditions, application guidance, technical requirements, IP conditions, and assessment criteria, visit the Innovation Exchange site at the link below.