Open to UK and African organisations who want to collaborate on an Agri-Tech project around food chain innovation in Africa. Are you working on Agri-Tech innovation and would like to implement some of your ideas in Africa? If so, you could get funding thanks to the Agri-Tech Catalyst Competition, Round 10, opening on 20 July. The funding available through the competition is for Agri-Tech projects on food chain innovations in Africa. These projects need to be delivered by a UK and an African organisation working together. Find out more here: https://ktn-uk.co.uk/news/agri-tech-catalyst-competition-round-10

1. The Knowledge Transfer Network
What we do
KTN is the UK’s innovation network. It brings together businesses,
entrepreneurs, academics and funders to develop new products, processes and
services
We help business to grow the economy and improve people’s lives by capturing
maximum value from innovative ideas, scientific research and creativity
Register for KTN Agri-Food newsletters: https://ktn-uk.co.uk/newsletter

2. Simon Baty – Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN)
Lucy Mather – Knowledge Transfer Network
(KTN)
Pedro Carvalho – Knowledge Transfer Network
(KTN)
Kathryn Miller – Innovation Lead, Innovate UK
Welcome

3. Aims of today’s event:
1) Better understand competition objectives, scope and rules
2) Opportunities to develop ideas and partnerships for the competition
- Learn lessons from previously funded projects
- Consortia building session – via meeting mojo and LinkedIn group
Overall – Help you be successful!
Event overview

4. 1) Questions
Type questions using the chat box on YouTube
Please only ask questions relevant to wider audience - we will answer some during the
event.
If your competition question is not addressed or for private questions, please contact:
support@innovateuk.ukri.org
How to participate today

5. 2) Meeting Mojo
Please register via https://agritech-catalyst-round10.meeting-mojo.com/ to ensure your
profile is available (you can use your LinkedIn profile if this saves time).
This tool allows you to connect with partners and facilitates introductions and online
conversations.
Please use the Capabilities Document we issued earlier this week, to identify people you
would like to connect with.
How to participate today cont’d

6. 3) LinkedIn group
Please feel free to register now for this LinkedIn group, as we will use it for consortia
building session (weblink also in the joining instructions email you were
sent): https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8766913/
How to participate today cont’d

7. Agri-Tech Catalyst Round 10
Agriculture and food systems innovation: Livestock

8. Innovate UK

9. We work with the government
to invest over £7 billion a year
in research and innovation by
partnering with academia and
industry to make the impossible,
possible. Through the UK’s nine
leading academic and industrial
funding councils, we create
knowledge with impact.

10. Innovate UK drives productivity and
growth by supporting businesses to realise
the potential of new technologies, develop
ideas and make them a commercial
success.
Innovate UK
To stay competitive as an advanced
economy, we need to do things that
others cannot do, or to do things in
different and better ways.

11. Competition scope

12. Agri-Tech Strategy
• Launched 22 July 2013
• Aims to improve the translation of research
into practical application for agriculture and
related industries in UK and overseas
• £160M government investment over 5yrs:
• Agri-tech Catalyst (£70m)
• Centres for Agricultural Innovation (£90m) –
Agri-Tech Centres

13. AgriTech Catalyst
• DFID has provided funding for the AgriTech
Catalyst since it was launched in 2013
• 58 projects over eight rounds, 53 of those in
Africa
• Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi,
Nepal, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania,
Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
• Since Round 7 the AgriTech Catalyst has been
focussed on Africa
• Round 10 funded through the GCRF
Photo Credit: CABI

14. AgriTech Catalyst
Value addition Food safety
Non food uses of crops
Control of crop pests
Improving productivity Livestock disease Control of crop disease
Reducing food losses

15. • £10m investment to support competitions including rounds 7 onwards
• £15m additional funding through GCRF from round 8 onwards
Timeline:
₋ Round 9 – 14 October 2019 – 8 January 2020
₋ Round 10 – 20 July – 21 October 2020 (this competition)
₋ Round 11 – To be confirmed, provisional open date March 2021
Latest funding available

16. Key dates
Timeline Dates
Competition Open date 20th July 2020
Online Theme Specific Brokerage Events
9th July 2020
• Crop
• Livestock & Aquaculture
• Food Systems and Nutrition
Online Competition Briefing 28th July 2020
Submission Deadline 21st October 2020 – 11am
Applicants informed 18th December 2020
Projects to start April 2021

17. - Projects must show the potential to deliver impact for poor people through the
uptake of agricultural and food systems technology and innovation
- Scope of the Catalyst includes:
- primary crop and livestock production including aquaculture
- non-food uses of crops, excluding ornamentals
- challenges in downstream food processing, distribution or storage and value
addition
- Improving availability and accessibility of safe, healthy and nutritious foods
- Your project’s innovations must:
- be sustainable in the context of environmental challenges such as climate
change and resource scarcity
- minimise negative effects such as pollution, food losses and waste
Agri-Tech Catalyst Round 10:
Scope

18. Areas of interest
Livestock
• genetic improvement for productivity/disease resistance
• development and access to livestock vaccines and medicines
• control of livestock pests and diseases including penside
diagnostics
• increasing the value of production to smallholders
Crops
• speeding up the development of new varieties for current
and future conditions.
• reducing post harvest loss on farm and through the value
chain
• control of crop pests, weeds and diseases
• increasing the value of production to smallholder
Food Systems
• downstream food processing,
distribution or storage and value
addition
• innovation that supports food
systems to deliver nutritious, healthy
and safe food
• meeting quality standards and
improving productivity
• addressing food safety issues
through the value chain
• new food technologies and data-
driven food systems, including for
urban areas
• Cross-cutting issues:
big data, AI, providing information to farmers, integrating smallholders into supply chains

19. Official Development Assistance
and Research
- Official Development Assistance (ODA) is defined as flows to countries and territories
on the DAC List of ODA Recipients
- Only research directly and primarily relevant to the problems of developing countries
may be counted as ODA
- Applications must clearly demonstrate that they propose work that will benefit
agriculture and food systems in Africa and how they will deliver this benefit.
- During the lifetime of a project, it may not impact large numbers of people, but
proposals must show how a project will build a pathway to future development impact.
- There can be benefits to the UK – companies/researchers – but this must be secondary
in nature.
- Activities in the UK must clearly be for challenges in Africa, not for the UK market.

20. Eligibility Criteria

21. Eligibility Criteria
Project Eligibility
• must be collaborative
• must include a partner from an eligible African country, who can be the technical
lead
• must include a UK-based administrative lead
• must be carried out in the UK or an eligible African country or both
• must include at least one business in the consortium
Project costs
• Early stage feasibility studies: £100,000 to £500,000, 12 to 18 months.
• Mid stage industrial research: £250,000 to £1 million, up to 3 years.
• Late stage experimental development: £150,000 to £800,000, up to 18 months.
Projects must start by 1 April 2021

22. Angola
Benin
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Central African
Republic
Chad
Congo (Brazzaville)
Congo, Democratic
Republic of
Côte d'Ivoire
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gambia, The
Ghana
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Kenya
Lesotho
Liberia
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mozambique
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
Sao Tome and Principe
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Africa
South Sudan
Sudan
Tanzania
Togo
Uganda
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Eligible Countries

23. For Early Stage feasibility studies and industrial research awards, you
could get up to:
• 70% of eligible project costs for micro or small business
• 60% for medium-sized business
• 50% for large business
For experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you
could get up to:
• 45% of eligible project costs for micro or small business
• 35% for medium-sized business
• 25% for large business
Grant intervention rates for business

24. • For early-stage feasibility studies and mid stage industrial research
projects the total costs for your research partners must not exceed 50%
of the total project costs
• If your consortium contains more than one research organisation, this
maximum will be shared between them
• For late stage experimental development projects: research base
partners cannot claim funding but can participate as subcontractors.
• Universities can claim 100% (80% of Full Economic Costs)
• Other research organisations can claim 100% of their project costs
• Public Sector Organisation or Charity can claim 100% of their project
costs
Research partner participation rules

25. Application Process

26. Search for a funding competition and review
criteria

27. • Project Summary
• Short summary and objectives of the project including what is innovative about it
• Public Description
• Description of your project which will be published if you are successful
• Scope
• How does your project align with the scope of this competition?
• If your project is not in scope, it will be ineligible for funding
Q1 – Equality, Diversity and Inclusion data – EDI survey
Q2 – Consortium – List all organisations in your project
Project Details – not scored

28. Application Questions
Application form
Question 3 Business opportunity
Question 4 Market opportunity
Question 5 Project results
Question 6 Official development assistance (ODA)
Question 7 International development (gender equality)
act
Question 8 Technical approach
Question 9 Innovation
Question 10 Risk
Question 11 Project team
Question 12 Financial commitment
Question 13 Added value
Appendix Q8
Appendix Q11
Appendix Q10
Appendix Q6
Detailed Guidance
Available on IFS

29. To find out more about the Agri-Tech Catalyst, including the competition brief:
Early stage: https://apply-for-innovation-
funding.service.gov.uk/competition/659/overview#summary
Mid stage: https://apply-for-innovation-
funding.service.gov.uk/competition/661/overview
Late stage: https://apply-for-innovation-
funding.service.gov.uk/competition/660/overview
Further Information

30. Customer Support Services:
0300 321 4357 (Mon-Fri)
support@innovateuk.ukri.org
Knowledge Transfer Network: www.ktn-uk.co.uk
Innovate UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/innovate-uk
Contact Us

31. @InnovateUK Innovate UKInnovate UK

32. Agri-Tech Catalyst Round 10
Agriculture and food systems innovation: Livestock and Aquaculture Webinar
Case Study

33. Production Breeding and Market Development
of Grasscutter in Ghana
Prof. Rob Ogden
University of Edinburgh
An Agri-tech Catalyst Round 7
Feasibility Study
GIfT

34. Grasscutter – Sustainable, delicious protein
• Locally adapted, high protein content
• Extremely popular, premium price
• ~80 million hunted annually in west Africa
• Hunting uses wire traps, guns, hunting
dogs, poisonous baits, burning land
• Gradual domestication & farming
• Eat grass / minimal feed required
• Modelling suggests high economic potential
• Environmentally friendly, decentralised
• Industry development faces several hurdles
Sub-Saharan natural distribution (dark grey)
Preferred meat source in Ghana (green)
Burn-off hunting
Small-scale farming
Widely consumed protein source

35. Grasscutter Farming in Ghana
GIfT
Upper West
Region, Wa
Key Challenges
1. The supply of farmed grasscutters is not able to meet the demand
2. Farmers lack the knowledge to optimally breed grasscutter
3. Farmer enterprises lack business skills to develop production
4. Insufficient investment and coordination exists to scale-up supply the chain
Informal Rearing
Informal Rearing Local sale
Breeding Processing Local sale
Breeding Processing Packaging National sale

36. Ghana Grasscutter Project
• Grasscutter Initiative for rural Transformation (GIfT)
• University of Ghana – Animal Science Department
• Grasscutter breeding facility near Accra
• Grasscutter farmers network around Wa
• Women’s community groups for food processing
• Support from Japanese foundation (Ajinomoto – nutrition)
• Support from Innovate UK Agri-tech Catalyst
Breedstock improvement
Farm supply
Farm husbandry
Meat processing
Meat marketing
Market development
1
2
3
Research to Support Production:

37. Project Description – Work Package 1 – Breeding
Grasscutter selective breeding programme
• Boost short term supply
• Improve long-term domestic grasscutter
population
Target traits
• Docility (males)
• Litter size (females)
• Growth rate
Activities
• New breeding facility
• Grasscutter acquisition and breeding
• Selective breeding infrastructure
• Foundations for genetic selection
Previous breeding facility Future breeding facility
Renovation June 202012-cage battery

38. Work Package 2 – Husbandry & Processing
Grasscutter farmers network, Wa region
• Expanding network of >60 farmers,
• Delivering training in grasscutter husbandry
and food processing
• Monitoring and evaluation to continually
improve farmer expertise
• Local staff employed by GIfT
Processing centre
• Co-operative meat processing and packaging
• Aim to gain brand licence and FDA approval
• Pathway from local farming to regional product
• Canned and vacuum packed grasscutter
CARING FOR YOUR GRASSCUTTERS
2. HEALTH MANAGEMENT1. FEEDING
3. REPRODUCTION 4. SEX DETERMINATION 5. REDUCING
AGGRESSION
6. GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS
AND GETTING ADVICE
Contact: Grasscutter Initiative for Rural Transformation (GIfT)
Titus Dery, Christopher Adenyo
c/o Regional Agriculture Department, P.O Box 21, Wa,
Upper West Region
0207452002/ 0246856786
GRASSCUTTER
REARING & MEAT
PROCESSING
m a n a l
G h a n a g r a s s c t t e r p r o j e c t
a

39. Work Package 3 – Business development & training
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Unslaughtered live amimal
Slaughtered whole animal
Smoked whole animal
Fresh meat cuts
Smoked meat cuts
Cooked meat cuts
Percentage
Market research along the value chain
• Producers
• Traders
• Processors
• Retailers
• Consumers
• Upper West (Wa)
• Greater Accra
• Kumasi
• Repeat measures
Micro-business training
• Small business management
• Supply chain development
• Local -> regional production networks
• Marketing and branding

40. Project Management
GIfT
Ghana project team
• 18-months, need to hit the ground running
• Weekly skype meetings (w/minutes & actions)
• Clearly devolved responsibilities
• High level of engagement
• Previous relationships help
UK project management
• Assigned Innovate UK project officer
• Attended workshop and visit to Wa
• UoE lead partner responsibilities
• Partnership agreements
• Quarterly reporting, narrative & financial
• Good experience so far!