Food & agriculture
- Food & agriculture
- Issue 100
How technology is reshaping farming
UK growing conditions for fruit and vegetables are changing all the time in the face of climate change. So, engineers are coming up with ideas to help farmers increase their crop yields in an ever more challenging environment – from robots to monitor and harvest crops, to automated vertical farms that reduce land use.
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- Food & agriculture
- Electricals & electronics
- How does that work?
- Issue 100
How do air fryers work?
Air fryers have become immensely popular in recent years, promising a healthier and more energy efficient method of cooking that can save you money. They have also inspired numerous dedicated cookbooks and even a few TV programmes.
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- Food & agriculture
- Health & medical
- How I got here
Meet the bioengineers
Today, there is an increasing variety of roles available to bioengineers. Bioengineering graduate and writer Fern Ellis spoke to a startup founder, a pharmaceutical services manager, and two academics, all working in different areas of bioengineering.
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- Chemical
- Food & agriculture
- How does that work?
- Issue 97
Non-alcoholic beer and wine
Sales of non-alcoholic and low-alcohol drinks have soared in recent years, more than doubling since before the pandemic. So how do manufacturers make them alcohol free while still tasting the same?
- Food & agriculture
- Issue 93
Fruit-picking robots
Dozens of engineering enterprises are trying to find ways of picking fruit and vegetables with robots. Nearly all of them have focused on strawberries.
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- Environment & sustainability
- Food & agriculture
- Innovation Watch
- Issue 87
Edible packaging
Half of plastic packaging is used once and thrown away. Notpla has developed sustainably sourced seaweed packaging to hold liquids, which decomposes in less than six weeks.
- Food & agriculture
- Issue 85
Intelligent weed control
Weeds can compete for light, nutrients, moisture, and space, and can often reduce crop yield and plant quality. Dr Nick Tillett, Director of Tillett and Hague Technology, discusses the advances that are allowing farmers to control weeds using less chemicals.
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- Food & agriculture
- How I got here
- Issue 82
Q&A: Ben Crowther
Ben Crowther is the Chief Technical Officer and Co-Founder of LettUs Grow, a Bristol company that designs modular aeroponic farming systems.
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- Food & agriculture
- Design & manufacturing
- How I got here
- Issue 81
Q&A: Mamta Singhal
Mamta Singhal is a Commercialisation Manager for Coca-Cola European Partners, GB Supply Chain. Before this, she worked for two large toy manufacturers as a design engineer with Hasbro and as a project quality engineer for Mattel.
- Food & agriculture
- Issue 80
Farming in the desert
Simple structures that use seawater to keep the growing environment cool are being used to farm fruit and vegetables in the Horn of Africa. Charlie Paton, Founder and Director of Seawater Greenhouse, discusses the challenges of creating a greenhouse that cools instead of heats.
- Food & agriculture
- Issue 78
Vertical farming for future growth
More of us live in cities than ever before and the global population is estimated to reach 11.2 billion by 2100, creating mounting challenges for agriculture. Growth Solutions grow produce under lights in vertically stacked towers to help meet growing demand for food.
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- Food & agriculture
- Innovation Watch
- Issue 78
Robots in the field
Engineers began developing a robot designed to autonomously pick and sort strawberries. Three designs later, the first group of 24 robots is reaching UK fields this summer to navigate the crops and select ripe fruit, before picking, inspecting and packing the strawberries.
- Environment & sustainability
- Food & agriculture
- Opinion
- Issue 72
What role for biofuels in low-carbon UK transport?
Biofuels have a role to play in meeting the UK’s climate change commitments. Sustainable Chemical Engineering Professor Adisa Azapagic FREng sets out why biofuels made from wastes and by-products in different sectors are particularly important to these efforts.
- Food & agriculture
- Issue 72
The automation of dairy farms
Robotic milking is not a new innovation, but the systems are increasingly being adopted by UK dairy farms. Science writer and broadcaster Geoff Watts learned from John Baines, Technical Director at Fullwood, how these systems are being engineered to do more than just milk cows.
- Food & agriculture
- Innovation Watch
- Issue 71
Farming straight up
Hydroponics, growing plants without soil in nutrient-enriched water, is a technique that has been used in some form for centuries. As the global population grows and food security is threatened, its faster growth and larger yields have become increasingly important.
- Food & agriculture
- Issue 64
Precision farming
Technologies such as global positioning systems and guided vehicles are being developed to create an era of precision farming. Professor Richard Godwin FREng explains how these initiatives can combine accuracy and control of field operations leading to increased efficiency and yields.