NFU Mutual’s Best in Show at LAMMA
Two of NFU Mutual’s Farming Propositions team, Charlie Yorke and Gregor Belcher, were among over 40,000 visitors to the annual two-day agricultural machinery show LAMMA 2025. The pair of tech enthusiasts report back on some of the innovative new technologies that caught their eye at this year’s show which attracted over 630 exhibitors.
Charlie Yorke, Farming Propositions Manager says:
“I was particularly interested in the conversations we had around technology for rural security. For example, SiteGuard stood out with a smart, straightforward solution to reduce rural crime. Their bollard-like device, equipped with cameras, triggers alarms and alerts to a monitoring station when someone enters a defined area. It struck me as simple yet highly effective.”
Based on NFU Mutual’s claim statistics, we estimate that rural crime cost the UK £52.8m in 2023, up 4.3% on the previous year. The cost of GPS theft reported to NFU Mutual rocketed by 137% to an estimated £4m. That’s why in the last three years, we have invested more than £1m in initiatives to tackle rural crime. In 2023, NFU Mutual proudly became a major funder of the National Rural Crime Unit (NRCU).
“Another innovation that caught my attention was the On Track GPS system. It’s a tractor GPS solution developed by a young farmer originally for his dissertation at the University of Reading. The system uses a small, magnetic device paired with a smartphone or tablet. It helps operators drive in parallel lines across a field with minimal skips or overlaps, using light technology and alerts. What I found exciting is that it’s a low-cost, simple solution, especially suited to smaller operations. It’s not for everyone, but it’s great to see this kind of innovative thinking targeting a specific market need.”
Gregor Belcher, Farming Propositions Consultant says:
“As well as the GPS system that Charlie has mentioned, I was really interested in the Shearwell Data reader and management app. I had an interesting conversation with them surrounding livestock management and how they have developed their platform to connect with other external government systems.
Additionally, I was really interested in the Bolus identification where they essentially put the electronic sender in the bolus so it is in the sheep and therefore cannot be removed or swapped by thieves.
This could help with livestock thefts, as farmers could record exactly which animals were in each field using either traditional electronic identification tags, or the aforementioned bolus’, via the linked management app, which would also hold of the flocks management information. If these sheep were stolen, they would be able to tell the police and their insurer exactly how many sheep were stolen and which animals they were. There is also the potential for this to generate a crime report number, so if the sheep were scanned at a livestock mart or abattoir then it could create an alert to notify, they are stolen and who the owner is.”
According to NFU Mutuals 2024 rural crime report, the cost of livestock theft in 2023 was £2.7m. This is why in 2024, NFU Mutual has funded the UK’s first livestock theft officer at the NRCU to tackle this upsetting crime.
