UK Agri-Tech centre 'still committed to aquaculture'

Farming and aquaculture innovation body the UK Agri-Tech Centre has said that aquaculture remains an important part of its future as it undergoes a substantial reorganisation.

The Centre has started a formal redundancy consultation process for up to 80 staff, and both Agri-Tech’s aquaculture trials and innovation lead Martin Sutcliffe and aquaculture innovation lead Polly Douglas have announced that they are “open to work” on LinkedIn.

The organisation’s part-ownership of the Marine Aquaculture Innovation Centre (MAIC) at Otter Ferry Seafish at Tighnabruaich in Argyll and Bute is also under review.

Change of direction

The changes at UK Agri-Tech follow the appointment of former Marks and Spencer head of agriculture and fisheries sourcing, Steve McLean, as chief executive last year. He has brought a more commercial focus and different direction to the Centre, which is a limited company that receives funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade.

“That proposed direction is about focusing the UK Agri-Tech Centre where we believe it can make the greatest difference: accelerating the adoption of agri-tech by connecting farmers, growers and food businesses with the right technologies, expertise, evidence, facilities, funding and opportunities, and working more through and with partners across the UK,” said McLean.

“The new approach has been developed with Innovate UK (part of UKRI).”

No more direct testing

A spokesperson for UK Agri-Tech said that as part of the proposals, the company plans to move away from directly testing, trialling, and validating technologies itself.

“The proposals also include transitioning our current facilities into partner organisations. We will continue to connect businesses with the specialist facilities and expertise they need, while working more closely with partners across the UK’s wider research and innovation network,” explained the spokesperson.

“The proposed changes also have implications for our organisational structure and our people. We have started a formal consultation process with colleagues, with up to 80 roles potentially affected.

“We recognise this is a difficult time for those directly impacted and for the wider team. The consultation is being taken very seriously, and no decisions about individual redundancies will be made until the appropriate process has been completed.”

MAIC 'will still be here'

Alastair Barge, managing director of Otter Ferry Seafish, said the company was due to have  a meeting with UK Agri-Tech about MAIC in a few weeks.

“I would think that MAIC will still be here for the industry to use,” said Barge.

He added that Otter Ferry already does a lot of the management of MAIC, and he is hopeful that the facility would continue to operate as normal, regardless of changes to ownership or management structures.

“We own half of it, and we’re not walking away from it,” added Barge.

“We’ll still have the same facilities, so the same capacity.”

MAIC is run on a shared profit basis, with any revenue or profit made on a research project such as a feed trial being divided between Otter Ferry and Agri-Tech based on what each of the partners has spent on facilitating the project.

“We get most of the revenue back because we’re incurring the operating costs,” said Barge.

“The industry needs a facility like this. I would like to think there’s enough enterprise and work in the future for MAIC, or whatever it may be called. It’ll be the same facility.”