SBRI - Agri-Food Tech Contracts for Innovation Cymru Phase 1 Challenge

It is the ambition of the Welsh Government to develop a thriving and confident agriculture sector in Wales built around innovation and growth, to rise to the challenges we face and make most of the opportunities available. In July 2025 the Welsh Government published its Sustainable Farming Scheme designed to ensure Welsh Government support for agriculture in Wales delivers against the four Sustainable Land Management objectives of the Agriculture (Wales) Act:

• Produce food and other goods in a sustainable manner
• Mitigate and adapt to climate change
• Maintain and enhance the resilience of ecosystems and the benefits they provide
• Conserve and enhance the countryside and cultural resources, promote public access to and engagement with them, and to sustain the Welsh language and promote and facilitate its use.

Innovation will play a key role in delivering this scheme. In 2023, the Welsh Government published an Innovation Strategy for Wales. Innovation in food and Agri-Food Tech was seen as a key part of Wales’s future economic development. In late 2023, the Welsh Government published an Agri-tech action plan for Wales. The development and adoption of Agri-Tech and Precision Agri-Tech is a strategic area of growth for the Welsh economy and one the Welsh Government deems requiring of focussed attention and a road map for development. The action plan has four priorities:

1. Accelerate Home Grown Welsh Agri-tech Capabilities.

2. Drive on-farm adoption to achieve productivity and efficiencies (incl. Environmental) gains ‘more for less’.

3. Deliver environmental benefits and help transition to Net Zero.

4. Support educational and skills development to equip future and existing agricultural professionals to exploit Agri-tech to its fullest.

SCOPE:

Cattle mortality data may provide valuable information on animal health, disease emergence and herd management. However, there are opportunities to make better use of mortality data alongside wider animal health surveillance information to generate timely intelligence that supports veterinary decision-making, farmer engagement and evidence-based policy.

Improving the collection, access, interpretation and communication of mortality intelligence could enable earlier identification of disease risks, encourage preventative herd health management and support the delivery of the Animal health and welfare framework | GOV.WALES for Wales, while contributing to the objectives of the Sustainable Farming Scheme.

We are therefore seeking innovative technologies, digital tools, data-driven approaches or other novel solutions that improve the collection, integration, analysis and application of cattle mortality intelligence to support proactive animal health management.