Full ADOPT Grant Programme (Round 2) – UK

This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.

Aims

• The aim of this competition is to support innovative, on-farm trials or experiments to test ideas or solutions and demonstrate that they will address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.

Specific Themes

• Your project must address a significant industry challenge or opportunity in at least one or more of the following sectors:
  • agriculture
  • horticulture
  • agro-forestry

Scope

• Your project must have the potential to significantly improve one or more of:
  • productivity
  • resilience
  • sustainability and progression towards net zero farming
• Your project must focus on testing and trialling ideas or solutions that are either new or not yet widely used.
• You must demonstrate to other English farmers, growers or foresters how the project will benefit them.
• You must outline how you will communicate and share the outputs from your trial or experiment during and after your project.

Funding Information

• The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £2 million for on-farms trials and farm experiment projects.
• have total costs between £50,000 and £100,000

Eligible Projects

• Your project must:
  • have total costs between £50,000 and £100,000
  • last between 6 and 24 months
  • start by 1 January 2026
  • end by 31 December 2027
  • intend to exploit the results from or in England
  • carry out all of its project work in the UK
  • embrace open innovation principles and be willing to share results with other farmers, growers or foresters
  • have a Project Facilitator as part of the project team who is listed in the ADOPT Innovate UK Business Connect database

Ineligible Projects

• They are not funding projects that:
  • do not benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England
  • are based on funded crop variety plot trials
  • are based on existing demonstration trials or projects
  • are for the production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use
  • are for cultivated meat
  • are based on equine systemsinvolve wild caught fisheries
  • involve aquaculture, such as algae and seaweed, or fermentation systems for bacteria, yeast or fungi for human consumption

Eligibility Criteria

• Lead organisation
  • To lead a project you must:
    • be an active farming, growing or forestry business of any size based in England
    • be able to evidence that you are an established commercial business, including sole traders and partnerships
    • have a UK bank account
    • collaborate with at least one other farming or growing businesses of any size, based in the UK
  • It is desirable that you also collaborate with other UK registered organisations.

For more information, visit Innovate UK.