SensNews Mar 2017

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19 Sensor100 March 2017
Agriculture
BBSRC HostsWorkshop on Sensing Systems for
Early Detection of Animal and Plant HealthThreats
In what seems to be a developing interest in the UK in the application of
sensor technology in the food and
agriculture sector, BBSRC*, in collaboration
with EPSRC* and DSTL* hosted aWorkshop
in London on 22 February. Readers of
Sensor100 will be aware that we have held
two conferences on Sensors in Food and
Agriculture and ); will be held on 5-6 December in
Cambridge, UK. Innovate UK’s lso held one-
day conferences on Sensors in Agriculture in 2015 and 2016. All of this activity
points to a growing recognition of the role sensor technology could play in food
and agriculture.
There is a well recognized need to increase global food production by 70% by
2050 (UN Food and Agriculture Organization) and food producers themselves
are under pressure to increase productivity and reduce costs. How sensor
technology can contribute to solving these problems is an evolving story. The
UK supports a number of world class academic centres in sensor technology,
but almost all of this effort is funded to develop technology for human health.
Providing incentives for universities to apply their sensor technology to the food
and agriculture sector can only be beneficial to solving the global production
problem.
The BBSRCWorkshop was well attended by about 80 delegates, mostly from
the UK’s academic and research institute sector. With such a diverse and well
informed audience, a great many ideas were floated; BBSRC has an unenviable
task in attempting to formulate an appropriate policy from this surfeit of infor-
mation. Themes which resonated with Sensor100 included: the need for col-
laboration between agricultural scientists and bioengineers in developing sensor
systems; multi-pathogen platform sensors; the need for a technology translation
organization to bridge the academic-industry divide.
It will be interesting to see how BBSRC develops its sensor policy in the light of
this welcomeWorkshop.
* Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council;
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council;
Defense Science and Technology Laboratory