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Knowledge transfer & new technology
Encouraging effective exploitation of new technology via research & development activity plus co-ordinated knowledge transfer.
Helping farm businesses to help themselves by taking up new technology. Failure to take up new technology might be due to risk aversion or simply not being aware of its potential benefits or even of its existence.
Landex is the national association of land-based colleges. Its 34 member colleges in England (and 8 associates in the devloved administrations) represent a significant resource for knowledge transfer and application of new technology from which farm business can draw. Defra and farm business owners and managers should articulate more clearly their needs and support colleges to meet them.
The UK is a world leader in Agri food research however this knowledge does not feed through to the farmers on the ground. There are a number of reasons for this, the main ones are;
• We have focused funding on high level research and not followed this through with applied research to demonstrate to farmers what new technology and techniques are available to them and the benefits they have.
• The farming industry does not challenge the research community and the funders of research enough, to ensure that their work is helping to address the barriers they face in increasing competitiveness.
• The industry has also lacked the profitability and confidence to invest in knowledge transfer and new technology.
There are some good examples of knowledge transfer but they are few and far between. It is not enough to just publish a journal article or leaflet about research or new technology, people learn a lot more by seeing and being involved projects that demonstrate what can be done. Yes this type of knowledge transfer is expensive but what is the point in Society funding research if it does not benefit from it.
As the document identifies, investing in R&D is a challenge for small businesses and limits the development and adaption of new technology, whilst translation to on-farm activity remains a key issue in ensuring effective uptake. NFU views on the need for committed funding in R&D have been made regularly over recent months, with the ongoing debates on food security serving to highlight the need to produce more and impact less.
We are lacking not only in near market, applied research to support economically and environmentally sustainable farming, but also in the infrastructure, particularly human to generate it: production researchers have largely left the field, and many have retired. The new generation of farmers have never seen a useful research establishment: they see R&D as either driven by commercial interests that are not their own, or environmental and of little value to themselves or too blue sky to be of any value to them. Colin Spedding said that R&D should be 1/3 literature review, 1/3 research and 1/3 knowledge transfer; current research eg at SAC has very limited funding for lit review and for KT. The graphs on UK’s falling actual & relative agricultural productivity show the danger of lack of practically applicable knowledge. For instance, the drop in sow numbers despite higher than European product prices demonstrate in large measure our lack of knowledge in dealing with PWMS disease, which the Dutch and the Danes put enormous resource into fixing. Other sectors will suffer similar losses if we don’t address this huge lack. Lack of underlying knowledge can look like lack of training, competitiveness or some other aspect, but we need to develop the tools of knowledge, knowledge exchange and transfer or face gradual attrition.
Given the many challenges faced by the farming industry in not only contributing to feeding a growing and increasingly affluent world population but also doing this against rising energy prices and water shortages it is impossible to imagine how it can succeed without the aid of science and technology. In this respect it is disgraceful that a virulent campaign by a minority with a vested interest has managed to slow – if not ultimately prevent – the adopting of GM. There is no living person who can foresee all the potential benefits and costs that biotechnology in all its forms will bring to the industry – just as even today we cannot foresee all the possible future for ICT. But of one thing we should be clear. British agriculture has a proud record in combining science with the production of food and it is both illogical and potentially devastating to the industry to frustrate its take up of new science and technology.