At the Expoagro YPF Agro Edition Agricultural Auditorium, a presentation promoted by the British Embassy in Buenos Aires was offered on “British agricultural technologies for more sustainable production” with presentations by Trisha Toop (Agri-EPI Ecosystem) and Rebecca Geraghty (Agrimetrics) .

“In 2013 the UK Government established an agritech strategy that links government with universities and companies, to reach the world. Latin America, what Great Britain is for, is the object of a very firm decision to come and be interested”, said Federico Pérez Wodtke, the Embassy’s agricultural attache and person in charge of the Agritech sector.

“We are more used to seeing in Argentina technology from other countries, from America and from other European countries, but not so much from the UK. The idea is to shorten that distance,” he added.

The UK has four innovation centres, equivalent to INTA in Argentina, which serve to connect sectors. “This is a kind of testing ground for companies, conducting trials before their products are marketed,” he explained.

The specialty of the innovation center is: animal science (animal husbandry), plant science (agriculture), Agri-EPI Ecosystems (precision agriculture, robotics and automation) and Agrimetry (data management and platform creation), the latter two being represented by lecturers.

Trisha Toop and Rebecca Geraghty spent the week in Argentina meeting agendas in various cities, organizations and on the Rosario Stock Exchange. “We have found that there is a lot of complementarity, and we draw a lot of expertise from Argentina”, they point out, listing direct sowing, crop rotation, sustainability measures, “which are doing very well in Argentina and it was important to bring them to the UK for knowledge exchange. and information”.

“The most impactful difference is the scale, there the terrain is much smaller. This innovation center tries to bring these solutions closer to smaller fields and innovative companies. There is a project to install some of the UK’s innovative farms here in Argentina”, he added.