FARM NEWS 9
• OCT/NOV 2019
HANDS FREE HECTARE BROADENS
OUT TO 35-HECTARE FARM
THE Hands-Free Hectare (HFHa),
a project run by Harper Adams
University and Precision
Decisions, a Map of Ag company,
has received funding from
Innovate UK to create a ‘Hands
Free Farm’.
HFHa started in 2016 with the
aim to be the first in the world
to grow, tend and harvest a crop
without operators in the driving
seats or agronomists on the
ground. The project has been
taken through two successful
cropping cycles and won several
awards; including the prestigious
BBC Food and Farming Future
Food Award.
The new Hands-Free Farm will
be a three-year-long
project, run
69945 - BelmontRegencyLtd - HALF.pdf
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in partnership between Harper
Adams and Precision Decisions,
along with a new partner; the UK
division of Australian precision agri-
culture specialist Farmscan AG.
04/04/2018 14:29:21
The project has just got
underway and is based at
the university’s campus in
Shropshire. The Agricultural
Engineering Precision Innovation
Centre (Agri-Epi Centre) are
providing the team with devel-
opment space and project
management support at their
Midlands Agri-Tech Innovation
Hub, which is also located on the
university’s campus.
Jonathan Gill, Mechatronics
Researcher at the university said:
“This time, we’re planning to grow
three different combinable crops
across 35 hectares.
“We’re moving past the feasi-
bility study which the hectare
provided us with, to now a
vision of the future of farming.”
Kit Franklin, Senior
Agricultural Engineering
Lecturer, said: “We want the
farm to become a testbed for
agricultural innovation. Once
the farm’s established, we’ll
be encouraging companies to
come and test and evaluate
their technologies.”
Additional elements to the
project include: Professor
James Lowenberg-DeBoer,
the Elizabeth Creak Chair of
Agri-Tech Economics at Harper
Adams, conducting an eco-
nomic outputs study in relation
to the project; and in the final
year of the project, alongside
being run at the university, the
system will be evaluated by
partner farmer David Blacker.
The team are supported by
the same consortium of in-kind
sponsors as HFHa along with
welcoming a number of new
organisations.
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