Autonomous Field Trial Leads To Lower Carbon Parsnips At M&S

Lower carbon parsnips are now available at select M&S Foodhalls across the country, grown autonomously in a trial funded by the M&S Plan A Accelerator Fund, which is available for innovation projects to enable rapid action towards net zero.

Working with a long-term, family owned root vegetable supplier, Huntapac, the project involved using the latest farming technology and scientific methods to farm with a significantly lower environmental impact.

The technology included two robots for bed forming, planting and weeding, two different types of drone to monitor and maintain crop health, and the latest scientific testing on soil health and carbon impact. Much like when agriculture moved from horse and plough to mechanical tractors, these latest technologies offer a future of farming that will aid farmers, create more highly skilled jobs in the industry and attract new talent.

The team also farmed while taking care to minimise disruption to the soil, helping to keep carbon locked away, and used a green fertiliser. These combined with the new tech, which has much lower carbon emissions compared to a traditional tractor, has demonstrated a carbon reduction of 47% in the growing phase, compared to standard methods.

On top of the carbon impact, there have been other benefits including a high quality of vegetables. AI was used to monitor and improve crop health and autonomous technology can reduce weather impact. For example, last year, following extremely wet weather the team were able to get in and plant the field with the autonomous robot which wouldn’t have been possible with a traditional tractor. The expectation is that this trial field will have 72% of picked parsnips at grade one which is a strong result versus other fields.

The field also included various measures from M&S’ Farming with Nature programme to improve biodiversity of both wildlife and the soil, including agrisound boxes and wildflower borders. AgriSound technology monitors pollinator numbers with specialist listening devices situated on farm. Through the trial, AgriSound found that there was more pollinator activity in the trial field compared to the standard field, demonstrating another environmental benefit to farming this way.

The parsnips were grown in Yorkshire and are now available in selected M&S stores for approximately a week.

The trial was the first M&S Food project to be funded by the M&S Plan A Net Zero accelerator fund, which the retailer launched to find innovation projects to enable rapid action towards net zero to meet its Plan A goal of being a Net Zero business across its entire supply chain by 2040.

Andrew Clappen, Technical Director at M&S Food, said: “The Plan A Accelerator Fund was designed to move us towards being a Net Zero business across our entire supply chain by 2040, by tapping into the entrepreneurial spirit of our suppliers. Partnership is going to be the key to achieving this goal and at M&S our unique model of own brand, long term supplier relationships is how we deliver the quality and trust our customers expect from us."

“It’s fantastic to see not only a carbon reduction of almost 50% from our trial with Huntapac, but a high proportion of the incredible quality of produce that M&S is famous for. The trial has also been really well received by the industry, with knowledge sharing sessions held to demonstrate the new technologies as if widely adopted, this would create more highly skilled jobs and attract new talent into the sector, which in turn would drive more innovation around finding new lower impact farming methods to reduce carbon emissions.”

Stephen Shields, Technical & Sustainability Director at Huntapac, said: “This project was only possible due to the M&S Plan A Accelerator Fund and our 40 year relationship. The opportunity to trial something which has such potential for our business and the industry is testament to the drive and appetite for innovation which is central to M&S Food."

"The success of this project has led to us explore the potential of purchasing our own robot so that we can farm more vegetables this way next season and in the future. We’re working to upskill our team and sharing our learnings with the wider industry as we believe this is the future of farming.”