Comment – Its the future

This week, in a bid to avoid the inevitable early morning queues ‘somewhere’ in Lincolnshire, I missed the Cereals Event (for the first time in years) and was forced to spend the week in Italy. I know, awful, but thankfully by the time you read this I will be home to the comfort of rain and the potholes on the lane.

My sources at the Cereals Event talk of some decent conversations and a bit of business out there, but a general lack of confidence, with the government, average crop prices and outlook putting a dent in the trade.

I had been dreading Wednesdays Governments Spending Review. Although the sentiment from the industry seems to be muted, the NFU have responded, which again, is not screaming with either pleasure, or despair. Agriculture, via DEFRA will have to make do with slightly less than before, but not a radical cut.

One reason for chasing the sun to Italy has been to attend the Field Robot Event, which, for the uninitiated, is in its 22nd year (who knew?). The idea being an international competition with defined tasks, and rules, to encourage the development of robots for farm tasks. What is fascinating about this event is that it has a strong following from around the world, with 16 teams, from 9 nations, including the Turkish delegation who drove two full days to get there!

We rocked up just in time for lunch (a big occasion) on Wednesday and witnessed several tasks including identifying and counting different fruit on different trees,  navigating row crops and finding and identifying photo-luminescent mushrooms in the dark, I know, magic mushrooms! What stood out, was that there was no one way to complete any task, with different sensors, drive set ups and approaches, some more successful than others.

The organisers are to be congratulated on bringing together such an impressive range of tasks, and providing  a forum for the teams of predominately students and researchers to work (and play) together. It was a wholly positive and encouraging vision of the future.

I should also give credit to the Claas Foundation which, for the last 20 years or so, has supported the event.

I’m looking forward to a quieter few days, and also not eating as well as this week!

Have a good one.

Andy