Business Update – January 2025

Since Dr Alex Setchfield and Dr Danni Roche joined in October 2024, the Ceres Research team has been able to meet the growing demand for independent agricultural research and knowledge exchange within the sector. In our first business update, we bring you the latest activities and deliverables from Ceres Research.  

Deliverables: 

• Research and Development: Collaborative partnerships and expert project management, including developing a circular economy-based R&D project linking arable and poultry farming, with multiple stakeholders. 

• Analysis and Review: Comprehensive impact analyses and market studies to detailed policy reviews and strategic consultancy, such as a bi-annual farming update being prepared for institutional landowners to send out to tenants. 

• Industry Intelligence: Targeted farmer surveys, focus groups and practical field-based analysis, including a farmer survey understanding nature recovery and floodplain management on-farm, and breaking news on the first instance of glyphosate resistance in Italian ryegrass in the UK. 

• Technical Training and Events: Training programmes, engaging events, and expert-led presentations, including farm cluster event organisation and a technical review of harvest 2024 (more detail below). 

Ceres Research Technical Event
The first technical event was held at the end of 2024 at the Young Farmers Club in Essex. The event provided a deep dive into what had worked and what hadn’t during harvest 2024. We also explored what can be done to improve productivity in the face of climate change moving into harvest 2025 and beyond. You can read the full article from this event, with the resources attached, here: Reflect and Project: A Harvest 2024 Review – Ceres Research. 

Corporate Memberships 

Ceres Research is delighted to have joined Agri-Tech E and UK Agri-Tech Centre as a corporate member in 2024, bringing together organisations across agriculture, technology and science. This membership will help Ceres Research to connect with industry pioneers and cutting-edge technology developers to expand our data-driven insights and actionable solutions on farm. We will continue to provide updates on future projects that result from these valuable connections. 

Sector Engagement and Knowledge Exchange 

Amongst many of the critical conferences attended late last year and early this month (such as the Institute of Agricultural Management, British Crop Protection Council Diseases Review, CLA East Roadshow the Oxford Farming Conference and the AICC Industry Day), Ceres Research was also delighted to be invited to sponsor the British Society of Soil Science Early Career members event in Cardiff, focused on careers in the soil-related industry in December 2024. Dr Danni Roche also presented some of her work on biostimulants and their potential impacts on soil health at the AHDB Agronomy Conference. The full conference was recorded and is available here. 

We are looking forward to the year ahead, especially harnessing the skills and expertise of our newly formed team as we continue to advance research and knowledge exchange in the agricultural sector.