Our Speakers

Will Downie - John Deere 

On board harvester nutrient measurement technology

Will Downie is the Precision AG Specialists at John Deere covering Scotland and the west of England area. He will be providing an overview of John Deere precision Ag technology and some of the latest innovations such as the Harvest Lab 3000 which uses precision analytics designed to make farmers more sustainable and profitable. 

Will has a wealth of knowledge and experience within the agricultural industry and has strong interest in new technologies and how these can be applied to UK agriculture. Will was brought up on a family farm in the North of Scotland and studied at Harper Adams University and then pursuing a career within the agricultural machinery industry. 

Watch the recording of Will's presentation here.

Dr Toby Mottram FRAEng FIAgrE

Opportunities in robotic horticulture

The UK has a fresh vegetable crisis that is growing.  Out of season vegetables are grown all over the globe, transport costs, trade disruption and a water deficit in growing areas such as Murcia in Spain are exacerbating this crisis.

Supplies of salad vegetables in winter are provided through highly automated, heated greenhouse systems that have their own crisis due to high rise in energy prices.

Looking at soils, there is a need to rebuild soil carbon, reduce erosion and cut nitrogen use, and this requires fundamental changes in husbandry systems, but new innovations and safety concerns will require major equipment re-designs.

In the UK there is a shortage of seasonal labour.  This may be temporary but there are longer term demographic and social changes that will make the shortages worse.  This scenario creates a major opportunity for novel engineering.  In this paper Dr Mottram will show and review some recent developments in robotics and horticultural systems.

Are purpose built robots integrated with dedicated implements the future or can tried and tested tractor and implement systems be adapted for autonomy?

Dr Mottram will look at data access and control and discuss whether plug and play systems can predominate despite the oligopoly of half a dozen tractor suppliers with in-house software.

One of the biggest challenges is business investors want companies that can scale millions of units to global markets and yet the market for these highly specialised robotic fruit and vegetable harvesting machines are tiny and development costs are high. 

Toby Mottram began his career as a farmworker in Devon and then retrained as an engineer, moving into research and teaching before going into digital agritechnology start ups.  During his academic career he co- invented robotic milking, developed cow breath sampling,  in-line milk analysis and the rumen telemetry bolus.  He set up eCow in 2007 to commercialise rumen telemetry systems and sold it as a going concern in 2021.

He completed a BBSRC/Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowship in 2016 to develop Milkalyser and subsequently raised £1.6 m to develop the prototype. Milkalyser was acquired by Lely the market leader in robotic milking in 2020.

Toby has now refocused on sustainable land management and peri-urban horticulture using robotics and sensing technologies.  He owns Robot Hayes near Exeter, which he is developing as a horticultural  development and test centre with the UK’s first farmBot system working in a polytunnel. 

Watch the recording of Toby's presentation here

Our Speakers

Niels Kortstee - Intelligent Growth Solutions Ltd

Vertical Farming - How a hybrid approach to farming can help agriculture to weather the effects of climate change

The summer of 2023 saw multiple global temperature records broken, with heatwaves and wildfires followed swiftly by flash flooding. As a result, global food security is headed towards a crisis point, and it’s time to rethink how we produce food. 

Vertical farming can work alongside traditional methods to help growers navigate these challenges. At IGS, we use Total Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA) to create the ideal growing environment year-round. Our technology solutions aren’t here to replace traditional farming, but work alongside it, putting control into the hands of the growers.

As Head of Product Management at Intelligent Growth Solutions, Niels Kortstee leads the team responsible for the business’ product offering, guiding every step of the product’s lifecycle, from developing positioning and managing new concept ideation through to setting the go to market strategy. 

Building on his degree in computer science, Niels has nearly 20 years’ experience in international engineering and product leadership roles, developing large-scale mission-critical systems for aerospace & defense, telco, energy, and industrial automation markets.

Watch the recording of Niels' presentation here

Kirsty Pilcher - AGCO

Exploring Global sustainability

Kirsty Anne Pilcher BSc (Hons) CEnv MIEMA is the Global Sustainability Manager - Decarbonisation at AGCO.  She will be describing AGCO's strategy for integrating sustainability into the design, manufacturing and distribution of smart agriculture across the entire value chain.

Kirsty has over 20 years’ experience working in the Environmental Management space in multinational companies’ across various industry sectors including construction, mining/quarrying, manufacturing, energy and transport, she is passionate about implementing sustainable practices into every part of our lives in the drive to achieve a net-zero world.

Watch the recording of Kirsty's presentation here