Press Release: Agrimetrics launch agri-food Data Marketplace

Agrimetrics, a UK Agri-Tech Centre with commercial and public funding, has launched the agri-food sector’s first Data Marketplace, which promises to reward data-owners, whilst accelerating innovation.

Agriculture has a big data problem. The sector desperately needs to improve productivity and sustainability. Data-driven technologies promise solutions to these challenges; unfortunately, many of these promises have been hollow.

“The problem is two-pronged,” says Dr David Flanders, Agrimetrics CEO. “Agri-businesses are – often justifiably – reluctant to share their data. Meanwhile, organisations lack the information they need to build new solutions. This has prevented meaningful innovation. Data-driven Manufacturers have, for example, increased production by 50% and cut waste by 20%.”

Dr David Flanders

CEO, Agrimetrics

The Data Marketplace pre-links data from multiple suppliers to provide a single, analysis-ready dataset to consumers

In response, Agrimetrics, the National Agri-Tech Centre for Innovation in Data Science, is overhauling the way agricultural data is shared and accessed. The Agri-Food Data Marketplace enables data-owners safely to share and monetise their data, whilst making it easier for data-consumers to find the information they need.

The project has attracted significant attention. Agrimetrics has close links with AHDB, DEFRA and the NFU, and boasts Microsoft as a strategic partner. Airbus, the aerospace giant, has already made satellite-derived field attributes available through The Data Marketplace; these attributes can be used to calculate irrigation requirements and develop methods for countering lodging. Airbus are joined by The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), Soil Grids, The Met Office, Natural England, The Environment Agency and others.

BASF, the world’s largest chemical manufacturer, has used the data to develop a water stewardship tool that gives field-specific guidance on when to spray. wHen2gO simplifies a complex regulatory area and is an example of how data-driven tools can improve sustainability and farm profitability. Barfoots, the UK food and farming company, is another user, having created a predictive harvest model to streamline their international supply chains.

“Robotics, artificial intelligence, carbon farming, predictive models, farm-to-fork traceability and natural capital accounting are often-highlighted when discussing the future of agriculture,” concludes Dr Matthew Smith, Agrimetrics Chief Product Officer. “However, they fundamentally depend on the ability to easily exchange data. This requires new linked-data supply-chains that seamlessly connect data-producers and data-consumers throughout the food and farming system. The Agri-food Data Marketplace is the closest yet to making this a reality.”

Dr Matthew Smith

CPO, Agrimetrics

BASF use linked-data to improve Water Stewardship

BASF, the world’s second largest chemical manufacturer, have used the linked-data on Agrimetrics’s’ Data Marketplace to create wHen2gO. The decision-support tool provides field-specific guidance on when to spray. Their goal was to simplify a complex regulatory area and enable farms to reduce their environmental impact and improve profitability

About Agrimetrics

Agrimetrics is the food and farming sector’s Data Marketplace. We enable organisations to safely share and monetise their data, whilst making it easier for data-consumers to access the information they need. Our goal is to help create a more productive and sustainable food system by enabling next-generation solutions as quickly and affordably as possible.

We are one of four centres for agricultural innovation founded with an initial investment from Innovate UK. Our founding partners are NIAB, SRUC, Rothamsted Research and The University of Reading. We have strategic partnerships with Airbus and Microsoft and are a participant in Microsoft’s prestigious AI for Earth programme.

About the four centres
The Agri-Tech Centres are a unique collaboration between Government, academia and industry created to drive greater efficiency, resilience and wealth across the agrifood sector. A £90m investment from the UK’s strategic innovation agency (Innovate UK) is enabling the Centres to harness leading UK research and expertise as well as build new infrastructures and innovation. They include CHAP (Crop Health and Protection), CIEL (Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock), Agri-EPI (Engineering and Precision Technologies), and Agrimetrics.

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