Soil-less technology for enhancing productivity, efficiency and sustainability in baby-leaf salad and field vegetable production

In the project, Saturn Bioponics will develop an innovative soil-less crop production technology solution that increases UK domestic production of various field and greenhouse crops in a cost-effective, practical, sustainable and profitable way. The primary theme this proposal addresses is "Improving business and industry efficiency" and the secondary theme is "climate change adaptation and mitigation". The COVID pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of the food supply chain, which is particularly dangerous for fresh produce such as salads and green vegetables which have a short shelf-life. The novel technology delivered through this competition helps to reduce the dependency on imports, potentially doubling the domestic output for the relevant crops over the year. It will also help to reduce the negative impact of agriculture on the environment and increase the productivity and profitability of the relevant crop production areas. Further, it helps to mitigate the risk associated with production of these crops that comes from climate change, disease and microbiological hazards.