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World agri-tech summit: businesses pitch for investment funds

Annual summit hosted in London brings together the world's leading agribusiness leaders, agri-tech innovators and venture capitalists.

agricultural engineer

Businesses supported by Innovate UK are among those selected to pitch for investment at this year’s World Agri-Tech Investment Summit.

This year’s event at London’s Hilton Tower Bridge hotel is taking place today and tomorrow and brings together leading international agribusiness leaders, venture capitalists and agri-tech innovators.

The event is sponsored by Innovate UK and includes a series of investment showcases at which selected agri-tech businesses pitch their ideas to investors.

Businesses showcase their innovations

Innovate UK hosts a session featuring the following five business it has supported.

Saturn Bioponics: provider of new crop production technology that substantially improves profitability and efficiency by increasing yields and reducing costs.

The University of Lincoln working with R Fountain & Son: developing an automatic robotic harvesting system for broccoli using 3D camera technology.

Soil Essentials: Scottish precision agriculture specialists working to make farming smarter and more profitable.

Ecospray: a natural biocides company delivering innovative, effective and benign crop protection solutions to both conventional and organic cropping systems.

FarmX: specialists in remote data capture to aid pig farmers in the UK and USA.

Find out more about how Innovate UK supports innovation in agriculture.

Exciting innovations in agriculture

Calum Murray, programme leader, sustainable agriculture and food at Innovate UK ,said:

The summit helps Innovate UK showcase some of today’s most exciting home-grown innovations in agriculture, from precision satellite technology in space to robotic harvesting on the ground.

This sector is buzzing with opportunity for investment and Innovate UK is delighted with the international interest British firms are generating.

The summit takes place each year and alternates between London and San Francisco. It features 2 days of debate and networking and aims to accelerate the transition of technology from the lab to the field.

Delegates to this year’s summit were welcomed by George Eustice MP, Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Sessions include ones on optimising the global food supply chain, big data, automated farming, and agri-genomics.

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Published 2 November 2016