Exeter Food and Environmental Intelligence Networks: Developing shared research proposals

Exeter Food and Environmental Intelligence Networks: Developing shared research proposals

We are delighted to announce the projects to be discussed in the workshop on Friday 28th November 2025, 13:00-15:30 in the SWIOT Computer Lab, Streatham Campus.

 

The meeting format will include presentation and discussion of the projects below, drawing on the approaches of team science (Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science | The National Academies Press) to workshop some  potential research questions, challenges or opportunities. There will also be an opportunity for all participants to briefly “pitch” ideas they have for feedback.

 

Please use this form to register to attend https://forms.office.com/e/PqXMfa3LeH, whether you have direct or indirect interest and expertise to contribute to the projects below, or if you are interested in the wider process.

 

AI for management approaches in sustainable farming (Markus Mueller)

While large-scale, industrial farming already utilises processes and approaches from automation, robotics and AI, often the sole objective is optimising yield. This can cause significant environmental damage from water scarcity, over leakage of fertilisers and/or pesticides, to soil erosion, which are often consequences of ignoring environmental constraints or sustainability objectives, or uncertainties and disturbances that are inherent to all natural systems (for example, weather and climate variability or pest occurrence). Industrial farming approaches are also not necessarily scalable to localised, small-scale farming. In this line of enquiry, I aim to facilitate a discussion with the aim to develop ideas for modelling and management practices for sustainable agriculture and food systems, which should draw on expertise from agricultural science, ecology, economics, engineering, environmental science, data science, etc., and explore potential for collaborations and partnerships with relevant communities in the South West.

 

The National Trust food and beverage footprint: the potential of using AI for sustainability analytics (Maria Eugenia Correa Cano)

Food and beverage activities are crucial to the National Trust; however, these activities can potentially increase the environmental footprint of the Trust. On this session I will talk about the estimated biodiversity impacts of these activities, which was part of the RENEW project, and open the floor to discussion on how using AI tools could potentially facilitate for instance, but not limited to, optimising for multiple objectives (cost, nutrition, and environmental footprint), consumer sustainability preference prediction and sustainability sentiment analysis, ingredient substitution modelling (e.g., estimate how changing one ingredient affects overall footprint).

 

Use of machine learning to enable an aquaculture enhanced future for the UK (Robert Ellis)

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector globally and includes some of the most sustainable forms of animal protein production. Moreover, enhancement of certain production models could play a vital role in the UK meeting a range of sustainability goals (biodiversity enhancement, improved coastal water quality, achieving net zero). Generating the data to support such a blue transformation is vital to enable this huge potential to be realised. In this session I will briefly introduce the opportunity offered by an expansion and diversification of aquaculture production in the UK, and welcome discussion on the ways in which environmental intelligence can be utilised to help remove existing barriers, unlock untapped potential and explore generation of new food markets. This could include validation of extractive aquaculture (bivalve, seaweed) as a nature-based solution to coastal water quality enhancement, development of novel land-based production methods in alternative settings (e.g. urban) or life-cycle assessment modelling to demonstrate the real value of UK provenance seafood in a global market.  

Please contact John Harvey (EI Network) with any questions.

Best wishes,

John Harvey, Harry West, Lorien Jasny, Maria Eugenia Correa Cano, Eleanor Hadley Kershaw