Saga Robotics Limited

Saga Robotics (SR) in collaboration with the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) are trialling and validating an innovative approach to pest control in commercial strawberry farms across Kent. This project represents the first-ever deployment of SR's fully modular mite dispersal system during the strawberry growing season. Central to this pro...

It is well accepted that due to Brexit, COVID, Ukraine and population demographics, the UK horticulture sector is heavily constrained by a lack of seasonal harvest labour. This year as crops have gone unpicked, NFU President Minette Batters stated that the sector was in an "absolute" food waste "crisis". DEFRA is working with industry to mitigate impacts....

Uncertainty over access to seasonal migrant labour is placing the otherwise vibrant UK fresh produce and soft fruit production under unprecedented pressure. The immediate impacts of Brexit and COVID-19 have and are restricting availability to the 69,000 seasonal migrant workers who travel to the UK each year to harvest over £1bn of fruit and vegetables. R...

Uncertainty over access to seasonal migrant labour is placing the otherwise vibrant UK fresh produce and soft fruit sector under unprecedented pressure. The immediate impacts of Brexit and COVID-19 have and are restricting availability to the 69,000 seasonal migrant workers who travel to the UK each year to harvest over £1bn of fresh fruit and vegetables....

Rapid advances are being made in the world of agritech, which is itself driving demand for integrated electric hubs (e-hubs) to provide the speed, torque, efficiency and durability required. The project aims to drive the electric revolution by undertaking design for manufacture, integrating the motor, gearbox, brake and controller modules into a single un...

Our vision for future soft fruit farming encompasses fleets of electric robotic and autonomous systems powered by renewable energy that pick, transport, pack fruit whilst gathering data to maximise yield, reduce waste and environmental impacts. Additionally, these technologies underpin industry sustainability by reducing sector reliance on low skilled lab...

The UK soft fruit industry employs about 30.000 seasonal workers. Most of these are migrant workers who stay during planting and harvesting season. Labour supply in the UK is already suffering due to Brexit, and this will get drastically worse with restrictions on mobility of workers due to COVID-19\. Growers are finding it extremely hard to get the neces...

There is increasing consumer and retailer demand for high-quality UK-grown strawberries, and this will increase further post-BREXIT as retailers favour British produce. Currently, c. 30% (Defra) of strawberries consumed in the UK are imported, and so there is a great opportunity to displace these, often inferior, imports during the home-grown season and b...

"The current crop production systems have been reliant on the wide-scale application of herbicides to control weeds. However, this approach is not sustainable due to unprecedented regulatory and environmental pressures which place new emphasis on the development of novel techniques to kill weeds. Precision hoeing equipment is a promising alternative but t...

"The UK soft fruit market is now worth well over £1.3 billion at retail sales values (Source: Kantar) per annum. The UK grows over 160,000 tonnes of fruit and employs 32,000 seasonal and, typically, migrant pickers. Approximately 50% of the total production cost is for labour. The soft fruit industry is extremely concerned with the both the availability o...

"The UK soft fruit market is now worth at retail well over £1.3 billion per annum. The UK grows over 160,000 tonnes of fruit and employs 29,000 seasonal and typically migrant pickers. 50% of the total production cost is for labour. The soft fruit industry is extremely concerned with the both the availability of picking labour and labour cost inflation. Th...

We estimate that the UK soft fruit sector employs over 35,000 fruit pickers each day. The roles are low skilled and the sector has a high reliance on EU migrants to fill these posts. The impact of Brexit, plus labour inflation through the national living wage legislation poses a serious and direct threat to the whole sector. The need to drive productivity...