EU agriculture ministers visited RISE in Uppsala

- I wanted to show RISE work with innovations in electric agricultural machinery and other innovative solutions. These are tools that can help us in the transition to a more sustainable and fossil-free food system, says Minister for Rural Affairs Peter Kullgren.

Peter Kullgren and the EU agriculture ministers visited RISE's test bed for digitalized agriculture in Uppsala. Swedish agriculture has an ambitious goal that all agricultural machinery by 2030 should be powered fossil-free, which would increase the country's resilience as we are currently dependent on imports of fossil fuels and fertilizers.

"To succeed, we need to work on the development of many fossil-free alternatives, and of course electrification is key. This research field is developing rapidly and together with digitalisation and the development of autonomous agricultural machinery, the benefits can increase even more through synergy effects," said Magnus Hallberg, Head of Division Bioeconomy and Health at RISE.

The test bed in Uppsala focuses on digitalization, automation, and electrification of agriculture.  The testbed and RISE are part of the EU's agrifoodTEF initiative, which is a major project to develop test and experimental facilities for AI and robotics in agriculture.

- Our goal is to continue to develop the test bed and create a facility where companies can test and verify technology such as robots and AI innovations for agriculture under realistic conditions, said Jonas Engström, researcher at RISE and responsible for the test bed in Uppsala.  At the same time, we demonstrate technology that supports the transition to a more sustainable, resilient and fossil-free agriculture.

The theme was “Step by step towards resilient fossil free farming”, and we showed various ways we work on this together with partners:

 - Testbed and tech infrastructure, AI and digitalisation by RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

 - Climate and nature - fossil free from field to fork by Lantmännen

 - Fossil free fertilizer by NitroCapt AB

 - electric autonomous agriculture machine by Traktorarvid, Arvid Örde, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, HydraSpecma, Micropower Group 

 - electric forestry machine by Malwa Forest AB and Regal Components AB

- agrifoodTEF as world class reference sites for experimentation and testing of AI and robotics in agriculture

Media contact:

Jonas Engström, RISE,  jonas.engstrom@ri.se, +46705155677