Since the first known examples of grain storage dating back to ~11,000 years ago in the Jordan valley, the process of storing grain (e.g. whole wheat/barley/oilseeds in sheds and silos) has been a critical part of the agriculture industry, essential to preserving the grain's quality and value, as well as to bridge the gap between harvest and its subsequent use. There is an unmet need in the grain storage industry to reduce absolute and quality losses (\>20%) and improve the health and safety of grain storage operations, as farmers and grain storage operators are still forced to walk on dangerous grain bulks to monitor and inspect grain. The objective of this project, a partnership between Crover Ltd, Associated British Ports, Camgrain, Holkham Farming Company, and Morley Farms, is to create the first robotic device able to safely and autonomously implement IPM practices for on-farm storage and that can go beyond the farm gate by replacing current, labour intensive and risky, grain storage monitoring and inspection solutions. The CROVER robot will provide, throughout the whole mid-stream of the grain value chain, in grain sheds/silos/lorries/cargos, high resolution data and environmental condition control that will aid the data-driven decision-making approach that is at the base of a successful IPM strategy. This will provide farmers, grain storage operators, traders and transportation companies with a tool to efficiently and remotely monitor and maintain the quality of grain bulks, hence enabling them to reduce grain claims/rejection, improve the health and safety of their operations, detect potential spoilage, and allowing proactive management to reduce losses and maintain grain quality. The project is made possible by Crover's proprietary technology for locomotion in bulk solids (e.g. sand, grains, powders) and it is based around the CROVER robot: the world's first 'granular drone', in the sense of a device able to move through bulk solids and powders. The project is a partnership between a very strong consortium made of: * Crover Ltd (technology provider) * Associated British Ports (the UK's leading port operator, with 21 on-port storage sites across the country) * Camgrain (the largest cereals and oilseeds cooperative and grain storage operator in Cambridgeshire and the UK's only farmer-owned network of APC (Advanced Processing Centre) central stores) * Holkham Farming Company * Morley Farms who will be working together to develop, test and share the project's outputs and maximise its societal benefits.

Elaniti, Camgrain, and Rothamsted Research are working together to establish the feasibility of interpolating soil microbial information on English wheat farms from more affordable and ubiquitous data sources. Traceable data demonstrating the sustainability credentials of source ingredients is increasingly required by consumer-facing organisations (FMCGs and Supermarkets), who have shown a willingness for supply-chain or 'insetting' investments. These organisations have also set ambitious sustainable-sourcing and emissions targets, so have begun financially incentivising farmers to adopt regenerative practices\[12\]. However, this regenerative transition is fraught with risk for individual farmers, who are unsure which interventions are suited for the needs of their soils. Unlocking this information for England's farmers will de-risk their transition to regenerative agriculture, with a 78%\[9\] uplift in on-farm profitability achievable through reduced input costs and increased crop value. Healthy and fertile soils are at the heart of the human diet, with 95% of all food we consume produced by soil\[13\]. However, the situation for British wheat farmers, accounting for 43% of total UK crops grown\[1\], is becoming increasingly bleak. Soil degradation now costs the UK £1.2bn per year\[4\] - due to Soil Organic Content (SOC) losses, reduced productivity from soil compaction, and reduced water quality from soil erosion. A decline in microbial abundance and diversity can act as an early warning sign for soil compaction and erosion, as well as preempting the amount of SOC in the soil due to the pivotal role microbes play in carbon, nitrogen, and nutrient cycling\[7\]. In turn, a 'healthy' soil microbiome elicits valuable downstream impacts on crops, including enhanced nutrient density\[14\]. Soil microbes therefore, are highly sensitive indicators of long-term soil health changes\[6\], and key determinants of crop outcomes, specifically in wheat\[7\]. The only way farmers can measure microbial communities today, is by interpreting complex results from expensive DNA analyses. As this is cost-prohibitive for most farmers, they generally rely on Physico-Chemical analyses alone\[8\], limiting information to macronutrients (NPK levels). This project adopts a multidisciplinary approach, leveraging the scientific expertise of Rothamsted Research and machine learning know-how from Elaniti, to demonstrate the feasibility of an innovative method for soil health measurement with farmers from one of the UK's largest farming cooperatives, Camgrain. This project aims to democratise soil microbial information, enabling England's wheat farmers to improve the health of their soils, facilitating an economically viable, sustainable, and scalable regenerative agriculture transition.

Cereals are traded on a wet weight basis. Thus post-harvest thresholds for safe storage can be exceeded when batches of different moisture contents of grain are placed in silos. This can result in initiation of mould growth and contamination with mycotoxins. The objectives of this project are to devise a robust integrated sensor system to monitor CO2, temperature and RH in different positions within grain silos and combine this with biological information on boundary conditions for growth of spoilage and mycotoxigenic fungi relevant to the EU legislative limits. This will provide an effective real time Decision Support System (DSS) tool for grain silo managers to control and minimise potential for spoilage and mycotoxin contamination post-harvest. The DSS system will have wide applications in the food and feed chains post-harvest in the UK, the EU and globally, for grain silo manufacturers, and for transport of grain, especially via shipping. This will provide a significant niche market for a powerful new DSS tool in the agrifood market.