Conference 2019 - Lessons from the Land - On Farm Developments

Parallel Workshop Speaker information - On Farm Developments:

Arthur Soames, Head of UK Sales, Hummingbird Technologies   

Hummingbird Technologies was a finalist in Agri-Innovation Den in 2017 and as business development director Arthur Soames says, the process helped build relationships with key industry experts.

He says: “Our mission as a business is to harness the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to help farmers make more informed decisions. This involves helping them target their inputs, maximise their yields and minimise their ecological impact. For example, on a macro level, we use satellite imagery to assess how much nitrogen oilseed rape crops need and if they require plant growth regulators.  We diagnose fields remotely and provide a recommendation, which can be a flat or variable rate applications map.”

Hummingbird Technologies are working on early disease detection which requires ultra-high-resolution imagery and hyper spectral imagery to detect disease markers which are present before the disease isvisible to the naked eye.

Professor Mark Rutter, Professor of Applied Animal Behaviour, Harper Adams University  

Mark's current research is focussed on how an understanding of the natural behaviour of domestic cattle can help improve their production efficiency as well as their welfare. This includes an interest in domestication and the evolutionary basis of behaviour. He is also interested in the role that precision livestock technologies can play in promoting sustainable livestock production and animal welfare.

Professor Simon Pearson, Director LIAT, University of Lincoln     

Professor Simon Pearson is the Director of the Lincoln Institute of Agri-Food Technology (LIAT), which sits within the College of Science at the University of Lincoln.
As Director of LIAT Simon helps develop and run cross disciplinary research projects on behalf of the agri-food sector. This includes a large focus on the use and deployment of agri-food robotic systems, including robotic crop harvesting and food processing systems, use of autonomous vehicles in the agri-food sector, the application of actuators within agri-food robotic systems.

Simon’s research interests include; a diverse range of agri technology applications including robotic systems, automation, energy control and management, food safety systems and novel crop development. The environmental physiology of fresh produce and ornamental crops, including impacts on crop quality and development. Post-harvest physiology of vegetables, fruits and cut flowers, including the use of modified atmosphere packaging. The effects of light manipulation on crop growth and development, including the development and application of greenhouse spectral filters and LED lighting systems. The development of on farm decision support systems from remote sensing information. The development of pre and post farm gate supply and demand forecasting systems.

Prior to joining Lincoln, he was the CEO of a large UK farming company, worked for Marks and Spencer plc in a technical role and as a scientist at the University of Reading.