Explore the 2026 Agenda

Join us on for a 5k run or walk along the Thames, starting and ending at the summit venue. Open to all delegates.

• What real agricultural systems are not just surviving shocks, but measurably improving under them? What does “improvement under stress” look like in grain and cash crop systems?

• If “antifragility" exists in agriculture, where is it most visible today and where does it break down fastest (inputs, yields, margins, logistics, or decision systems)?

• How much of current “resilience” is dependent on external stabilisers such as subsidies, input supply chains, insurance mechanisms, and trade continuity?

• Can agriculture be redesigned to improve under stress rather than degrade, and to structurally align capital, technology, and biology under uncertainty? Or is resilience still the ceiling of what is realistically achievable?

Three case studies – Ukraine, Sub-Saharan Africa and UAE 

This session draws on three contrasting frontiers of constraint: agricultural production under active conflict in Ukraine, chronic food insecurity across dryland farming systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, and state-directed food system transformation in the UAE. Each examines what fails first under extreme pressure, what adaptations have sustained output, and whether the lessons are transferable. 

• Ukraine: When logistics collapse, inputs are disrupted, and export routes become unstable, what has sustained production – and what capacity has been permanently lost?
   
• Sub-Saharan Africa: Are smallholder adaptations to drought, soil depletion, and input scarcity genuine pathways to scalable resilience – or coping mechanisms under persistent constraint? When systems are pushed to the edge, what determines resilience – and why do some producers absorb shocks while others cannot?
   
• UAE / Food Tech Valley: When a nation imports over 80% of its food and faces acute constraints of land, water, and climate, what does it mean to build food security from scratch? The UAE's Food Tech Valley represents a high-capital, technology-first bet on controlled environment agriculture, vertical farming, and agri-innovation clusters. How far can engineered abundance substitute for natural resource endowments – and what does this model offer, or not, to food systems with neither the capital nor the conditions to replicate it?

A rapid assessment of farm profitability under sustained input inflation and market instability, drawing on data from European producers.   

• Where farms are reducing dependency and where exposure is rising

• How sustainability-led practices perform economically in practice, not in theory

• What the data says about structural profitability across different farm types and regions

• How exposed is global food production to energy volatility, and how quickly does a price shock become a production crisis?
• Can fertiliser dependency realistically be reduced at scale, and do the risks look the same across Europe, Africa, and import-dependent regions?
• What happens to food systems when input supply is disrupted, and who absorbs the damage first?
• Should fertiliser and energy inputs be treated as strategic infrastructure in the same way critical minerals and energy networks are?
• Which alternatives to synthetic inputs are genuinely credible at scale, and which are still experimental regardless of the investment they are attracting? 

Part 1 – State of the Market (analyst/industry perspective)

• Where do biostimulants, biocontrols, and biofertilisers sit today in terms of market size, growth trajectory, and share relative to synthetic inputs?  
• What is driving uneven adoption across geographies and crop systems – and is it primarily regulatory, agronomic, or commercial?  
• What does the investment and regulatory landscape look like heading into the next phase of scaling? 

Part 2 – From the Field (producer perspective)

• What does it take to move a biological from laboratory promise to consistent field-level performance?  
• Where do formulation, stability, and agronomic integration most commonly cause failure in practice?  
• What do producers need from the supply chain, regulators, and growers to make biologicals work reliably at scale? 

Real farm-level evidence from three operating carbon schemes. What income are farmers generating, what are the operational realities, and why do carbon outcomes vary so significantly across production systems? 

• Who captures most of the value in current carbon market structures, is it the farmer, or is value being extracted at the aggregation, verification, and corporate procurement layers before it reaches the farm gate?
• What breaks first at scale in carbon markets, trust in the underlying methodology, pricing mechanisms that cannot reflect the true cost of permanence, or verification systems that were never designed for agricultural complexity?
• Do carbon markets meaningfully change farming behaviour at field level, or do they primarily function as a corporate reporting mechanism with limited impact on how land is managed?
• Can carbon markets function credibly across the heterogeneous smallholder and dryland systems of the Global South, where verification is expensive?

• Which precision agriculture technologies consistently deliver ROI at farm level, and which have failed to justify the investment, and why?
• What are the most common reasons promising technologies stall at the pilot stage and never reach meaningful adoption?
• Do farmers trust data-driven recommendations, and what would need to change for that trust to be established at scale?
• At what point does adoption of a given technology become economically unavoidable, and have any reached that threshold yet?

This debate explores whether venture capital is well suited to scaling agtech, where biological and farm adoption cycles are slower and more complex than in typical tech sectors.

In favour of VC:
VC is seen as critical for enabling innovation that would not otherwise reach market, with failures often linked to execution rather than the funding model itself.

Against VC:
Critics argue VC incentivises misaligned priorities, pushing companies toward fundraising and growth milestones that don’t match farm-level adoption realities.

The discussion will question whether agriculture requires more patient or hybrid capital models better aligned with long-term biological systems.

Scaling agritech requires navigating technical complexity, distribution barriers, regulatory friction, and investor expectations. Leaders from high‑growth companies share practical insight into the transition from pilots to robust commercial scale, with a focus on how capital and execution evolve from Series A to C. 

• What must be proven, beyond product–market fit, to credibly raise Series B or C capital for scale?
• Where did growth capital genuinely unlock scaling, and where did money fail to solve the core constraint?
• Which economics or performance metrics had to materially change for the business to scale sustainably?
• How did you align financing structures and investor expectations with long sales cycles, capex intensity, or biological risk? 

• Is 'transition finance' genuinely new capital or existing flows relabelled under sustainability criteria?
• How are bank lending conditions and government schemes shaping which farming practices are financeable and which are not?
• Are corporate procurement standards and retailer sustainability scorecards a coherent investment signal or an unaccountable source of pressure on farm businesses?
• Who has access to transition capital and what structural barriers continue to exclude smallholders, tenant farmers, and frontier market producers?
• Do current financing structures accelerate the transition or concentrate its benefits in operations already positioned to change?

• How is agricultural risk being managed in an era of increasing climate volatility and why have insurance systems struggled to keep pace?
• Who absorbs systemic agricultural shocks today: farmers, insurers, governments, or supply chains?
• Are parametric insurance solutions sufficient for large-scale, systemic climate events or do they paper over deeper structural gaps?
• How does risk exposure vary across regions and are current models designed for those differences?
• Are existing insurance frameworks adequate for the realities of a changing climate or does the model itself need to change? 

Flipping the conventional format: Early-stage company founders question leading investors about what genuine partnership looks like, what support beyond capital actually means, and how to build an effective start-up-investor relationship in agriculture's complex environment.

Let us raise a glass to a great first day! You are invited to join us in the exhibition area for networking drinks for the chance to unwind and continue the day’s conversations in a relaxed setting.

Join us for a morning of meaningful networking and conversation celebrating the women who are driving innovation and impact across agriculture today. Through candid discussions on mentorship, resilience, leadership journeys, and inclusive networks, we will explore how the sector can better support, retain, and elevate the next generation of diverse female talent. An open, energising space to meet peers, exchange experiences, and start the day connected.

• Which type of farm operations are genuinely closest to full automation today?
• Does intelligent mechanisation reduce labour dependency or shift it toward new technical, data management and maintenance roles?
• How significant are interoperability gaps between machines, platforms and farm management systems and is the EU's AgIN framework and High Speed ISOBUS architecture adequate to resolve them?
• Who owns and controls the operational and agronomic data generated by autonomous systems - and does the EU Data Act meaningfully change the power balance between farmers and OEMs?
• What conditions – economic, regulatory or agronomic – represent the tipping point at which AI-enabled and autonomous systems become commercially unavoidable for European farms? 

This session highlights gene editing’s growing role in accelerating targeted trait development and improving crop performance under real-world farming conditions.

• How will differing regulatory approaches, between regions already cultivating gene-edited crops and more restrictive markets, shape global trade and market access?
• How is the competitive landscape evolving as some countries move into commercial cultivation while others remain in trial or policy transition?
• How do approval speed, regulatory certainty, and policy direction determine where gene-edited crops are scaled and deployed?
• What factors will ultimately determine leadership in the gene-editing landscape over the next decade - scientific capability, regulatory agility, or the ability to move from lab to field at scale?

More companies are embedding regen ag into their supply chains to reduce environmental impact and strengthen long-term supply resilience. Our case studies illustrate how different industry players are putting this into practice through pilot programmes, farmer partnerships, and sourcing or land-use commitments aimed at improving soil health and production stability over time.

• Can regenerative agriculture deliver consistent economic returns at scale, or are current evidence bases too fragmented, context-dependent, and short-term to make a credible case to commercial producers?
• What limits adoption across crop systems and regions - is it primarily economic risk, agronomic complexity, the absence of reliable transition support, or the lack of market signals that reward regenerative practice?
• How important are incentives in driving system change, and is the current mix of public payments, carbon markets, and supply chain premiums sufficient to move adoption beyond early adopters and into the mainstream?

• How is hyperspectral imaging being used for early crop-stress detection, disease monitoring, and water-use optimisation and what does it deliver at field level?
• Can satellite-to-machine interoperability move from concept to practice and how is remote sensing data being used to directly inform machinery decisions and in-field actions?
• Are satellite-driven MRV systems robust enough to support carbon, biodiversity, and water stewardship claims or do verification gaps remain?
• What is the quantified operational impact of each of these technologies in real farming systems?

• Is agriculture becoming structurally less accessible due to capital intensity, and are land prices, input costs, and financing barriers now excluding the next generation before they start?
• Does digitalisation attract new talent into farming by making it a more compelling career, or does it raise the skills threshold and create new barriers to entry for those without the background or resources to meet it?
• What happens to production systems, institutional knowledge, and landscape management if generational renewal fails, and are there regions where that failure is already visible?
• Is talent now a primary constraint on agricultural productivity alongside capital and climate, and if so, is it being treated with the same urgency?

Water Constraints & Agricultural Risk
This talk will explore where water scarcity is already limiting production, how risks are evolving across regions, and whether efficiency gains can realistically offset declining natural resources. 

Measuring Sustainability in Agriculture
This talk will review the reliability and comparability of soil health metrics globally, and whether current environmental metrics are driving better decisions or primarily serving reporting compliance. 

• Who is truly capturing the value created by agri-tech innovation – farmers, technology providers, investors, or the wider food supply chain?
• Are we solving real productivity and resilience problems in agriculture, or primarily funding technologies that improve efficiency for intermediaries rather than farms?
• Why is adoption of proven agri-tech solutions still inconsistent across farms – what is the real barrier: cost, trust, complexity, or misaligned incentives?
• Can current policy frameworks support disruptive innovation, or are they structurally preserving the status quo?
• Is the future of farming becoming more autonomous and data-driven in a way that strengthens rural economies – or concentrates control and risk in fewer global actors?