English Growers' ability to obtain the large seasonal (75,000+ strong)(9) workforce needed to harvest field vegetables has been severely impacted by Covid-19, Brexit and declining migrant worker availability across Europe(10). This has become a national crisis that threatens the UK food system's resilience more than any other single challenge(11). According to a report by the National Farmers' Union (NFU), UK farming is facing a significant labour shortage. Up to a quarter of the UK's fruit and vegetable crops could be left to rot in the fields this summer due to a shortage of pickers, packers, and other seasonal workers from overseas(12). The reported crop losses have doubled since 2020(13). According to a report by Farmers Weekly, published on October 13, 2022, labour shortages in the UK farming sector have worsened due to COVID-19 and Brexit, with a significant shortfall of seasonal workers for the 2022 harvest. This has led to delays in harvesting and reduced yields, which has resulted in a shortage of vegetables in UK supermarkets(14,15). "UK farming crisis: quarter of fruit and vegetables at risk of rotting in fields as labour shortage hits,"(16) **"Unprecedented labour shortages have left hundreds of tonnes of produce rotting in the fields"** Financial Times(17,18), **"Labour availability is very tight \[...\] we could have done extra volume \[with more workers\]" (G. Read, Staples Vegetables UK)** Muddy Machines (MM)'s agri-robot, Sprout, is a lightweight (doesn't compact soil), battery-operated (sustainable) robot that selectively harvests vegetables in-field. It has already been demonstrated to selectively harvest asparagus in-field effectively. In this £999.5k, 36-month project, MM and JGHC farms will demonstrate a robust on-farm robotic localisation and navigation system allowing safe harvest execution without unrealistic reliance on RTK-GPS. **This will be achieved through the innovative optimisation of several independent techniques, and safe yet harvest-executing behaviours for on-farm navigation.** This project will open new possible markets for our herd of Sprouts in more varied growing environments.

English Growers' ability to obtain the large seasonal (75,000 strong)(5) workforce to harvest field vegetables has been severely impacted by Covid-19, Brexit and declining migrant worker availability across Europe(10). Domestic labour ('Pick for Britain') cannot replace the need(11). As price-takers with low margins, growers cannot profitably offer higher wages(12). This has become a national crisis that threatens the UK food system's resilience more than any other single challenge(60). **"Unprecedented labour shortages have left hundreds of tonnes of produce rotting in the fields"** Financial Times(57,22) **"Labour availability is very tight \[...\] we could have done extra volume \[with more workers\]" (G. Read, Staples Vegetables UK)** **"If we can't get enough people, ...we don't have a business! \[...\] Imports carry a higher carbon footprint and we cannot fully control provenance and growing practices."** (John Chinn, Cobrey Farms) "Labour shortage for harvesting is our greatest current concern, forcing us to significantly reduce our future cultivation of crops like courgettes. Harvest automation is the only viable solution for our profitability, keep operating in England, and **2025 Net Zero aims(14)**''. Barfoots of Botley, major UK Courgette and Asparagus grower. A 30% **shortfall of harvest workers in 2020(13) resulting in wasted crops has been attributed to Covid-19**; Brexit and **the** narrowing wage-gap between Eastern Europe and the UK (BBC Farming today 26.10.2021: Monthly labour costs in Romania have tripled from £300 to £1000); The Association of Labour Providers: **"staff shortages in the food supply chain are unprecedented, bleak, and ongoing. 99% of labour providers couldn't meet needs for workers in the last 3 months, and 75% will not be able to meet demand in the run-up to Christmas".(**61**)** MM's agri-robot, Sprout, is a lightweight (doesn't compact soil), battery-operated (sustainable) robot that selectively harvests vegetables in-field. It has already been demonstrated to selectively-harvest asparagus in-field with a greater yield than several labourers. Despite these successes, a single Sprout cannot selectively harvest a typical crop alone! A **herd of semi-autonomous Sprouts is needed**. This represents MM's next significant innovation challenge, realising a herd (swarm) of robots. This £1.7m, 19-month collaborative project between MM and its Grower Collaborators will develop and demonstrate a working herd of harvesting Agri-robots able to harvest vegetables in-field sustainably and reliably. It will overcome challenges in safety, harvest-planning, communication and display, on-farm infrastructure; transporting the herd between locations and designing for further reduction in mass and further-improved yield.

This industrial research project will further develop the capabilities of an existing robotic vegetable harvesting concept in order to develop a prototype that can be used for commercial trials during the 2022 harvest season in the UK. There will be a special focus on the resilience of the machine in an in-field environment as well as cyber threats from external agents. This project addresses both labour shortages in agriculture and the UK's move towards net-zero greenhouse emissions. This project is led by Muddy Machines Ltd, an agricultural robotics start-up and supported by leading UK asparagus experts at JGHC Limited and cybersecurity experts Warwick Manufacturing Group, University of Warwick.

Maintaining asparagus quality using cold storage alone is currently limited to one week. Thus, UK asparagus production is unable to provide year round supply necessitating the import of large quantities of spears from overseas. This practise has a significant environmental impact and burden as much of the product is transported by air freight. A previous Innovate UK and BBSRC funded project established the optimum dynamically controlled atmosphere (DCA) conditions to preserve the quality of UK-grown spears for 3 weeks plus one week of shelf-life. However, the major limiting factor to implementing DCA commercially was the development of the physiological disorder known as tip breakdown (up to 10% of asparagus production is affected). High levels of tip breakdown were observed in 2018 across the UK and this was attributed to the warm temperatures during the harvest season. This project aims to identify the factors that cause tip breakdown; and thus the opportunity to reduce its incidence and understand when fresh harvested spears may be successfully stored in DCA and/or actions that may be taken. This will be achieved by developing a decision support tool using classification models in order to identify and predict tip breakdown at their early stages.