Funding for food suply chain automation announced

The government has ramped up its support for the use of automation in the sector to reduce the reliance on migrant workers whilst introducing measures to promote British workers into agriculture.

This will start with immediate work to fully automate a group of major packhouses in 12 to 18 months, which will improve understanding of the government support needed to make fully automated packhouses universally viable. Information learned from this will help inform the planned £50 million package of packhouse automation funding, with further details to be announced later this year to cover 2024-25 and 2025-26.

The government will also work with technology companies to accelerate the development of robotic crop harvesters – aiming to bring prototypes on a par with human pickers in three to five years. This will help make the UK food supply chain the most cutting-edge in the world, asserts the government.

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