Agritech

Agritech is the use of technology to improve our farming practices.

The Future of Agriculture

Agriculture is a sector often overlooked by graduates but it is likely to benefit in significant and exciting ways from the latest technological developments.

Sector Lead for Agritech, Helen Dundas, addresses the 4th Agricultural revolution and its place within the Data Driven Innovation (DDI):

With this revolution will come all sorts of innovations, including:

• Sensors for livestock, to allow farmers to track their temperature, pH and their stage of pregnancy.
• 'Smart' automated tractors which can respond to the quality of the soil and treat the surrounding crops in a bespoke way.
• More advanced gene editing techniques to produce the best yield in crops, poultry and livestock, while maintaining animal health and reducing need for antibiotics.

Precision Agriculture

The Direct Path to Agritech

The Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Systems is a leading interdisciplinary hub of researchers, teachers and students developing new science, and curating evidence and learning on the interdependence of the systems that underpin the health and wellbeing of people and our planet. It offers the following free online short courses:

• Sustainable Global Food Systems: How do we feed 11 billion people?  Discover the importance of sustainable food systems globally. Sustainable Global Food Systems
• The Power of Data in Farm Animal Practice:  aims to upskill farm animal professionals in data science.  It encourages learners to interpret on-farm data and apply it to health, productivity and welfare improvements. The Power of Data in Farm Animal Practice

Postgraduate - Taught and Research

The Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Systems offers a broad-range of postgraduate qualifications, from credit-bearing standalone short courses to full Masters degrees. 

• Postgraduate taught qualifications with an agritech theme
• Postgraduate Research Opportunities

The Roslin Institute - Roslin is investing in a small number of specialised masters courses and PhD programmes to train our newest quantitative geneticists. 

The Roslin Institute

Other postgraduate courses are available at other institutions. 

How do I get involved?

Companies 

Edinburgh is home to a number of SMEs focussing on the latest agricultural innovations. Here are jusy a few examples:

• Roslin Technologies - an agriculture and biotech startup, focusing on gene editing and animal science.
• Icerobotics - specialise in livestock behaviour. Producers of the app 'CowAlert', which allows users to track the behaviour of livestock.
• Scottish Bioenergy - producers of spirulina from seaweed. 

Search for other Agritech employers on MyCareerHub.

Skills 

Many of Agritech's future innovations will come from people with strong quantitative, rather than agricultural, backgrounds. These may include:

• Robotics
• Informatics
• Anyone from a more general quantitative background i.e. Physics, Mathematics.

Graduates in these areas are in demand for their ability to bring a new technical background to local agriculture.

Take a look at Prospect's overview of the Environment and Agriculture sectors.