Dr Helen Ferrier, the NFU’s acting Head of Policy, said: “I am delighted to be introducing our guests and techUK members Rob Carter from fieldmargin and David Topping with Neville Sankey from ITOrbital, to NFU members at Cereals 2017.
“We are looking forward to a lively and thought provoking session where we will be explaining why farm data and digital technologies are important issues for the NFU, the work we have been doing on behalf of members and how we will be taking it forward,“
Rob Carter is the CEO and Co-founder of fieldmargin, an app that allows farmers to digitally map their farm, make located records of what has happened on it and collaborate with everyone working on it. He will be speaking on the impact that technology will have on farms of the future. To give you a taster; think open data, machine learning, autonomous machinery and … no more tractors! This vision of the future is core to the development of fieldmargin and Rob will be sharing his rules for making technology that is helpful and delightful for farmers to use.
David Topping and Neville Sankey will represent ITOrbital, a software and data company that has been developing farmer decision-making tools in India and sees significant application for the UK arable sector. The concept enables farmers to continually and securely update and improve their own tool by simple input of day to day information. The critical importance of farmer trust and control, with clear benefits in a reliable easy to use product, is central to ITOrbital’s approach.
techUK represents some of the biggest tech companies in the world, and have been working together with NFU to build new opportunities in agri-tech for farmers and growers, which will improve working practices, planning and ultimately improve the overall competitiveness of farm businesses.
- For more information on fieldmargin see www.fieldmargin.com
- For more information on ITOrbital www.itorbital.com,