United Kingdom
January 30, 2015
Agri-Tech East has just opened its membership and is delighted to announce that Honingham Thorpe Farms (HTF) is the first farming business to join.
HFT, based near Norwich is a large farming and contracting business covering approximately 8,000 acres. It grows a range of combinable crops along with onions, potatoes, parsnips and sugar beet in a traditional Norfolk rotation. The farm is highly innovative and uses some of the latest techniques and equipment.
Precision agriculture is of increasing interest. One recent introduction is the use of a GPS logger and gatekeeper programme to produce soil maps. Samples are taken from a known point and then logged onto a map. This information can then be inputed into the fertiliser spreader and it will vary the rate according to the result.
Jamie Lockhart, Estate Manager, comments that he is keen to explore the potential of other technologies and says that being a member of Agri-Tech East will help to facilitate this.
“We have joined Agri-Tech East as we are keen to be at the forefront of agricultural innovation. It will give us the chance as farmers to speak to scientists and developers about the issues and problems we have and hope that this could lead to solutions that are relevant to our farming business.
“We are also keen to host trial sites for new products and technologies and could even provide office and warehouse space for start-up or existing businesses. As we are geographically close to The Norwich Research Park and hope that we can offer a link from the lab to the farm and from scientists to farmers.”
Jamie participated in the Remote Sensing and Monitoring Special interest group and was able to provide the technologists present some useful insights into the on-farm application of the technology and he will be attending the Water For Agriculture event in March.
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