Aims/priorities: The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), in partnership with Innovate UK, is making up to £2 million available through the Farming Innovation Programme to support on-farm trials and farm experiment projects in England.
This competition is aimed at farmers, growers, and foresters who wish to test and evaluate new or emerging ideas and solutions in real on-farm conditions. Projects must address a significant challenge or opportunity in the agriculture, horticulture, or agri-forestry sectors and show the potential to improve productivity, resilience, or sustainability, including progression towards net zero farming.
Proposals should clearly demonstrate how the outcomes will be relevant and beneficial to other farmers, growers, or foresters in England. Applicants must also describe how they intend to communicate and share the findings of their trial or experiment during and after the project.
The initiative seeks to support innovation that is not yet widely used across the sector and contribute to practical improvements in farming practices.
Who can apply? This competition is open to collaborations only. To lead a project an organisation must:
- Be an active farming, growing or forestry business of any size based in England.
- Be able to evidence that they are an established business, including sole traders and partnerships.
- Collaborate with at least one other farming businesses of any size based in the UK.
To collaborate with the lead, an organisation must be a farmer, grower or forester based in the UK, or a business of any size, academic institution, charity, not for profit, public sector organisation, research organisation or research and technology organisation (RTO).
Grant amount: Defra has allocated up to £2 million to fund industrial research projects. Funding will be in the form of a grant. Each project’s total costs must be between £50,000 and £100,000.
A minimum of 50% of the total grant amount requested by farmers, growers and foresters must be allocated to farmers, growers or foresters geographically based in England.
Application process: Applications are made online.
More information is available at the IUK website.
Deadline: Applications are open between 28 April 2025 and 25 June 2025 (11:00).
Contact information: Email: support@iuk.ukri.org