UK and Canadian companies were brought together through online and in person events to identify and build project concepts in sustainable agriculture.
The seven winning UK entities are: Arden Biotechnology, Devenish, Precision Decisions, Airborne Robotics, RAFT Solutions, Clarity Biosolutions, and RS AQUA.
Their respective Canadian partners are TrustBIX, Mara Renewables Corporation, JCA Industries, Société pour l’information industrielle (SII Canada), Bow Valley Genetics, Sona Nanotech, and Innovasea Marine Systems.
The Canadian partners will receive funding support through the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP).
The competition ran in the first half of 2020 and aims to boost international cooperation and business growth, by mobilizing cross border resources and expertise to combat climate change.
The winning projects had to demonstrate a clear plan to:
- improve productivity
- increase sustainability
- help move towards achieving net zero emissions by 2040
- show market awareness
- develop a commercial plan
Katrina Hayter, challenge director for the Transforming Food Production program, UKRI, said: “UKRI’s UK-Canada competition is an important initiative that helps UK businesses create strong international networks, access expertise and develop international market opportunities. The UK companies and their Canadian partners are working on an exciting array of projects to integrate cutting-edge technology into everyday farming techniques that could help both the UK and Canadian agriculture [sectors] improve productivity and sustainability and ultimately make our respective agricultural systems more climate friendly.”
Mitch Davies, president, National Research Council of Canada, said international collaboration is key to SME growth. "These collaborative partnerships provide accelerated access to new markets and global value chains, positioning Canadian businesses to compete globally.”
Photo credit: GettyImages/metamorworks
UK company, RS AQUA, is collaborating with Canada's Innovasea Marine Systems to improve the environmental profile of the aquaculture sector. RS AQUA was awarded £103,807 (US$146,900) in UKRI monies.
The project also includes Grieg Seafood Shetland as an unfunded industry partner.
Aquaculture, outlined the partners, is an important industry for sustainable protein production, with Atlantic salmon, in particular, known for having one of the lowest feed conversion ratios (FCR) of all protein sources.
However, aquaculture producers are continuously looking for solutions to improve the health, welfare, and productivity of their stock, while further reducing environmental impact of farm activities, they noted.
Harmful algal blooms (HABs), which can contribute to higher incidences of disease and elevated mortality on fish farms, currently pose a challenge to these goals, said the partners.
"Under certain environmental conditions, microscopic algae or phytoplankton populations can become very large and form blooms. Not all phytoplankton are harmful, but some species produce harmful toxins, others deplete dissolved oxygen in the water, or have physical features that can damage fish gills, compromising their health. HABs are not only harmful to fish, but can also affect birds and mammals, including humans. A HAB in close proximity to a salmon farm can cause major problems for fish health and welfare and may result in high mortality, which is both economically and environmentally costly.
"Global warming may have contributed to an overall increase in HAB frequency and farmers are increasingly concerned about their ability to detect and mitigate these threats."
HAB monitoring is part of the daily routine for many aquaculture farmers, who want to have the best possible tools at their disposal, they said.
Innovasea and RS Aqua say they will take advantage of specialist expertise in fish health and data analytics at Scotland's Rural College, as part of this project. The team will develop an early warning system to notify fish farmers of potential and imminent HABs.
"By continuously monitoring the environmental conditions on and surrounding their farms, farmers will be informed when conditions that promote blooms are occurring in real-time, thus enabling them to respond quickly and take steps to reduce the impact of such events. Such a system will have far-reaching impacts for the aquaculture industry and advance the methods of HAB monitoring, while increasing food production and reducing the carbon footprint of fish farming."
Photo credit: GettyImages/hstiver
UK's Arden Biotech, which was awarded £247,846 (US$350,559) as part of this UKRI funding initiative, is collaborating with Canada's TrustBIX Inc on a feed related project.
Arden has developed a novel bacteriophage cocktail, a feed supplement to:
- combat clostridium perfringens
- enhance gut health
- reduce the risk of necrotic enteritis.
Through this collaborative 24-month industrial research project, Arden is seeking to extend the development of this technology to the Canadian poultry and other livestock sectors in partnership with TrustBIX.
Photo credit: GettyImages/Ruslan Sidorov
Northern Ireland headquartered, Devenish, is partnering with Canadian algal oils producer, Mara Renewables Corporation on a poultry project. Devenish was awarded £384,216 (US$543,913) in this respect.
The partners said their vision is to develop the next-generation of algae-derived products for use in poultry production in the UK, Canada, and other regions worldwide including markets in South America, Australasia, the Middle East and Africa (MENA).
The key objective of the alliance is to develop a more sustainably produced, nutrient dense, chicken that will provide a rich source of omega-3 oils in the human diet whilst enhancing the overall efficacy of poultry production.
They believe the research findings would also be applicable in other farmed animal production sectors including swine and aquaculture.
The partners outlined how commercial on-farm studies, in both the UK and Canada, will rely on a range of sensors and big data tools to validate their work.
Photo credit: GettyImages/Ilia Nesolenyi
UK companies, RAFT Solutions Ltd, Atelerix, Ostara Biomedical Ltd and Dyneval are partnering with Bow Valley Genetics, Canada, on a cattle fertility project. The UK firms were awarded £398,894 (US$564,598).
Good fertility performance is the cornerstone of a profitable and sustainable livestock enterprise. In international dairy and beef herds, optimum performance is achieved by maintaining a calving interval (CI) of 365 days. Every day a CI increases is estimated to directly cost the farmer £2.07/CAN$3.54 per cow, or more, when it comes to high yielding dairy cows.
Fertility drives productivity and in turn the mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through reduced waste and optimizing unproductive replacement youngstock inventories, said those involved in the project.
This project is supported by advisors at University of Saskatchewan and University of Guelph in Canada; the teams will research and develop a number of innovative new technologies and establish national level referral facilities for quality assurance and improvement of bovine germplasm, as an integrated bilateral approach.
The outputs of the project will transform genetic progress, through adoption of precision technologies, diagnostics, advanced breeding and big data, leading to more sustainable livestock food production and export opportunities in both UK and Canada, said the partners.
Photo credit: GettyImages/ngaga35
Clarity Biosolutions won £299,736 (US$423,988) in funding. It has set up an alliance with Canadian firm, Sona Nanotech, to develop a reliable test for bovine TB.
Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is caused by a particular bacterium that affects cows but can be passed on to practically all mammals, including humans. The usual route of infection is through the inhalation of infected droplets which are expelled from the lungs by coughing. Because the course of the disease is slow, an undetected cow can spread the disease to many others in a herd before it begins to show any visible signs of illness. Unregulated movement of infected but undetected cows, along with contact with infected wild animals, are the major ways that the disease is spread.
Accurate detection, herd management and movement control are critical to achieving the eradication of the disease. The current test for bTB on farm herds is relatively subjective relying on individual veterinary practitioner interpretation, however. It is also not sensitive enough to detect all the cows that are infected therefore making eradication impossible, said the companies involved in this consortium.
Control measures for bTB have cost the industry over £500m in the last 10 years. Those costs are expected to top £1bn over the next decade if no new action is taken, they said.
A new, effective test is urgently needed.
The consortium is aiming to eliminate inaccurate test results frequently experienced by farming communities across the country but also worldwide. The collaborators said such ‘false negative’ results lead to infected animals being missed, bringing enormous economic and emotional cost to farmers, society and governments.
“This project combines the latest cutting-edge science and technological developments with world-class research, state of the art facilities and expertise, to develop a new highly accurate, objective test to rapidly detect, manage, control and ultimately eradicate bTB.”
Airborne Robotics and ADAS, who were awarded £391,347 (US$553,828), are partnering with Canada's Société pour l'information industrielle (SII).
Airborne Robotics’ RootDetect program aims to design a sophisticated sensor to scout out large areas for signs of club root in canola and oil seed rape crops. It is building a specialized Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) prototype for the agricultural environment.
ADAS said it is looking to validate data from the UAV with in-field assessments of clubroot disease and SII Canada will develop the algorithms necessary for machine learning for identification/diagnostics purposes.
"The product/service enabled by this project will be an integrated, data driven clubroot management tool. This will combine UAV capability with on-farm software which optimizes the long- and short-term economics of clubroot management, based on remotely-sensed spatial data. The RootDetect smart tool will be competitively priced to ensure it is accessible to end users and maximize uptake of its use."
The idea is that the semi-autonomous remote sensing tool will efficiently scout large areas and 'see' clubroot symptoms earlier than the grower or agronomist. Affected areas in the field will then be mapped and linked to precision farming technology which will allow targeted treatment of infested patches. "This will be cost effective for the grower and will minimize wastage and thus lower carbon emissions."
Photo Credit: GettyImages/Sergii Zyskо
