Published date: 29 March 2023

This notice was replaced on 29 March 2023

This notice does not contain the most up-to-date information about this procurement. The most recent notice is:

Awarded contract (published 25 April 2023)

Awarded contract - This means that the contract has been awarded to a supplier.


Contract summary

Industry

  • Research and development consultancy services - 73200000

Location of contract

SW1P 3JR

Value of contract

£12,688

Procurement reference

CF-0057000D8d000003VQwdEAG

Published date

29 March 2023

Closing date

28 February 2023

Closing time

11:59pm

Contract start date

1 March 2023

Contract end date

31 March 2023

Contract type

Not applicable

Procedure type

Call-off from a framework agreement

A mini-competition or direct purchase from a pre-established framework agreement.

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

Yes

Description

AHDB's Slurry Wizard is an Excel tool that enables farmers to work out their slurry storage requirements and explore different storage scenarios to comply with regulations.

The main aim of the Slurry Wizard is to identify whether there is adequate slurry storage and to explore different strategies to meet compliance.

The Slurry Wizard has four key components:

• To calculate the existing slurry capacity.

• To calculate the existing slurry production.

• A report to look at the monthly production compared to existing storage.

• To calculate the Nitrogen produced in organic manures per hectare.

To inform the slurry production calculation the tool draws on monthly rainfall data embedded within
the tool, based on the farm's location using the 'Telephone STD code'. The monthly rainfall data used is 20 years old. Although the tool allows for the contribution to slurry production from some aspects of the farming system, for example, parlour washings from dairying, there is no equivalent input field to account for wash water generated on a pig farm.

There are some additional input fields required to improve the user experience when inputting farm specific details into the Wizard, for example, including slurry bags as a storage type option.

The purpose of this project is to update Slurry Wizard to:

1. Scope out options for updating the old rainfall data with more recent and higher resolution rainfall data

2. Widen the scope of the tool to enable pig farms to account for pig wash water production (agreed calculation factors are detailed below)

3. Add input fields to the Slurry Data Entry tab

4. Add an additional pig production type category in Livestock Data Entry tab

5. Investigate and fix an anomaly in current formula execution

6. Reformat the livestock input tabs to split out pig, cattle (retaining the cumulative calculation across livestock types)

7. Remove unnecessary legacy coding sitting within the tool

8. Testing the tool

Award information

Awarded date

3 March 2023

Contract start date

1 March 2023

Contract end date

31 March 2023

Total value of contract

£12,688

This contract was awarded to 1 supplier.

Ricardo-AEA Ltd

Address

The Gemini Building, Harwell, Oxfordshire OX11 0QR

Reference

None

About the buyer

Contact name

Felicity Jowett

Address

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-environment-food-rural-affairs
Bristol
BS1 5AH
UK

Email

felicity.jowett@environment-agency.gov.uk