Printable versionGovernment is investing up to
£10m in the venture and expects that this will be matched by a further
£10m from industry.
It will be the
first in a series of centres for agricultural innovation, following publication
last year of theUK Strategy for Agricultural
Technologies, which aims to encourage businesses to develop, adapt
and exploit new technologies.
The centre will benefit the whole
agri-tech sector. It will become a repository for and a single point of access
to relevant data sets, as well as being a centre of excellence for
sustainability metrics and ‘big data' mining, integration and
analysis.
The plan is for the centre to be set up
and operated by a single consortium of publicly and privately-funded
organisations, and for small and medium-sized businesses to play an influential
role. The Technology Strategy Board is managing the process of identifying and
selecting the consortium.
The outline proposal stage opens
on 30 April 2014, with a deadline for those outline
proposals at noon on 18 June 2014. A briefing event for
potential applicants will be held in London on 19 May
2014.
