This project aims to help turn around the struggling UK tomato industry by creating a brand-new way to grow tomatoes that is more efficient, uses less labour, and is better for the environment. Since 2000, UK tomato production has nearly halved, with rising costs and labour shortages forcing growers to move production overseas. Today, 80% of the tomatoes eaten in the UK are imported. To tackle this, a team of experts from Phytoform Labs, CambridgeHOK, APS Group, British Tomato Growers Association and the University of Lincoln, is working together on an innovative solution called AUTOTOM. The idea is to combine new plant breeding techniques with automated growing systems. The first step is developing a new kind of tomato plant. Using a modern method called precision breeding (a faster, more targeted form of plant breeding), Phytoform Labs has created small, compact tomato plants that grow one set of fruit at a time. These plants are easier to handle and perfect for automation. At the same time, CambridgeHOK will adapt a high-tech growing system that moves plants through the greenhouse on conveyor belts. This allows the tomatoes to be picked automatically, in one place, without the need for people to walk through rows of plants. This setup is expected to cut labour costs by over 70% and increase tomato yields to 45--50 kg/m²/year, better than today's average. The University of Lincoln will test the system in their new research greenhouse and use digital tools to fine-tune the glasshouse layout. APS Group, the UK's largest tomato grower, and the British Tomato Growers Association will help make sure the new system meets real-world farming and supermarket needs. If successful, this project could lead to tomatoes being grown more locally, reducing imports and cutting carbon emissions from transport. It also creates opportunities for new, skilled jobs in science, engineering, and farming, and supports UK food security. By making tomato farming more productive and less reliant on manual labour, AUTOTOM offers a smarter, more sustainable future for British horticulture---and a fresh competitive edge for UK growers in a £1.8 billion market.

In addition to the challenge of increasing yields and improving quality, the global agricultural production system also faces tremendous pressure to reduce its carbon footprint to mitigate climate change. Even though photosynthesis of crops largely consumes CO2 as the endogenous driving force of agriculture, protected agriculture in various countries and regions is still a carbon emission-intensive process (Marttila et al., 2021; Northrup et al., 2021). Thus, taking full advantage of the crop ability of carbon fixation and combining the advantages of various disciplines should be a sustainable strategy to meet challenges in global food production and climate change simultaneously. CO2 dosing is a well-known technique for improving plant growth and boosting crop yields in controlled environment agriculture. The most commonly used methods for indoor CO2 supplementation include using fuel-based gas-boiler and combined heat and power (CHP) generators, and receiving regular deliveries of CO2 in liquid form, which are stored on-site. Although these methods release high levels of CO2, they have been widely adopted because of their low cost. Disruption to Russian gas supplies to Europe resulted in a sharp increase of up to 500% in energy prices for both businesses and domestic properties. This has had a detrimental impact on CO2 prices resulting in twentyfold increase. Furthermore, glasshouse growers decided not to plant as they could not afford to pay for the gas required to operate their boilers and CHPs. This resulted in a fresh food shortage in the UK in winter when local CEA supplement the import, demonstrating the reliance of the UK food security on imported gas. Carbon HarvesTech is a cutting-edge, low-impact, modular CO2 supply solution tailor-made for indoor farming. Developed by Brits Energy, this innovative solution emerged from extensive research into Direct Air Capture methods. It offers a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative to existing CO2 supplementation techniques. Carbon HarvesTech is designed for on-site installation and delivers food-grade CO2 on demand. By doing so, it not only reduces environmental footprint and costs but also enhances fresh food supply security. The project's primary goal is to validate the technical and commercial viability of Carbon HarvesTech, to enable indoor farming to reach its full productivity potential while minimising its environmental impact.

The project main aim is to provide a sustainable solution to the inherent problems of the greenhouse protected cropping industry through proposing a low-cost energy saving and climate control system. The project presents an innovative integrated approach to enhance the energetic performance of greenhouses and improve the yield of various protected crops through employing a seasonal underground thermal energy store with an innovative vacuum insulation panels in addition to utilizing heat insulation solar glass as the greenhouse glazing, natural ventilation windcatchers and innovative LED lights. The proposed solution enhances the glasshouse indoor conditions, improves the productivity and reduces the reliance on conventional fuels to provide energy needs and thus reducing the carbon emissions and the high running costs. Successful project implementation will benefit the whole community including the protected cropping growers and industry, the customers and the UK economy.

Growing urban populations and a shrinking land base means that the global level of food production will need to increase over the next 30 - 40 years and this will need to occur in the face of an unpredictable climate and lowered resource availability. Precision agriculture will play an important role in alleviating these problems and here we propose the novel use of plant sensors combined with efficient Light Emitting Diode (LED) arrays to increase the efficiency of crop growth in horticulture. We also propose the use of cutting edge genetics to assist with breeding tomato plants for high efficiency under LEDs. LEDs are set to replace existing horticultural lighting sources (such as sodium lamps) due to their low cost, long lifespan and high energy efficiency. We sit at a point where the uptake is yet to occur on a large scale so the market is potentially large and we expect new agri- markets to open as a result of the low cost and low infrastructure requirements of LEDs. We propose the novel use of plant sensors in combination with LED lamps to improve the energy efficiency of LEDs further. We will use spectral reflectance and chlorophyll fluorescence to assess plant area, photosynthetic functioning and 'health'. Data from these sensors will be supplied to a control unit that will modulate the output of the LEDs according to the requirements of the plant (leaf green area, photosynthetic capacity etc). It will also allow the grower to 'speed up' or 'slow down' the rate of growth to alter time to market and provide some novel possibillities for adjusting the morphology of the crop since the individual wavelengths will be tuneable. These adjustments will permit the optmisation of LED output, reducing energy costs.