Asked by: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government how they plan to make publicly funded data accumulated by Agrimetrics available; and whether access to that data will be cost-free.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Between 2016 and 2024, Agrimetrics Ltd. received £27 million public funding through Innovate UK.
Agrimetrics Ltd. was not set up to generate or make data publicly available but used the funding to create a data platform that allowed businesses to host, integrate and analyse agri-food data.
The data on the platform was provided by a variety of different public and private sector organisations, who retained ownership, rather than Agrimetrics Ltd. This approach maximised the engagement of private sector data owners. Of the data sources used, some were already freely available, and some for a fee. We are unable to comment on what data will continue to be available as Agrimetrics Ltd. was an independent organisation and the government does not have access to the data it hosted.
The infrastructure provided value to business in the Agrifood sector over the years it was funded, however due to the speed of technological changes in this sector funding the platform no longer represented value for money. Innovate UK ceased providing Agrimetrics with core funding on 31 March 2024.
Asked by: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what the level of public investment was in Agrimetrics from 2015 until it ceased operations.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Between 2016 and 2024, Agrimetrics Ltd. received £27 million public funding through Innovate UK.
Agrimetrics Ltd. was not set up to generate or make data publicly available but used the funding to create a data platform that allowed businesses to host, integrate and analyse agri-food data.
The data on the platform was provided by a variety of different public and private sector organisations, who retained ownership, rather than Agrimetrics Ltd. This approach maximised the engagement of private sector data owners. Of the data sources used, some were already freely available, and some for a fee. We are unable to comment on what data will continue to be available as Agrimetrics Ltd. was an independent organisation and the government does not have access to the data it hosted.
The infrastructure provided value to business in the Agrifood sector over the years it was funded, however due to the speed of technological changes in this sector funding the platform no longer represented value for money. Innovate UK ceased providing Agrimetrics with core funding on 31 March 2024.