Deadline: October 15, 2025
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), in partnership with Innovate UK, is offering up to £3 million in grants to farming, growing, or forestry businesses based in England to support innovative on-farm trials and demonstration projects that tackle major agricultural challenges and opportunities.
The focus areas are productivity, resilience, sustainability, and progression towards net zero farming. The competition aims to fund projects that test new or not yet widely used ideas and solutions in agriculture, horticulture, and agro-forestry. The projects must demonstrate clear benefits to other English farmers, growers, or foresters and outline how the results will be communicated and shared.
Applicants must be active farming, growing, or forestry businesses of any size based in England, able to demonstrate commercial activity and hold a UK bank account. Collaboration with at least one other UK-based farming, growing, or forestry business is required. Partners may include UK registered businesses, academic institutions, charities, public sector bodies, and research organizations, with provisions for non-UK partners contributing funding. Subcontractors are also permitted with justification.
Project size must be between £50,000 and £100,000 in total costs, lasting from 6 to 24 months starting by 1 March 2026 and ending by 29 February 2028. Projects must embrace open innovation and collaboration principles. Funding will be awarded as grants, covering varying percentages of eligible costs depending on organization size and type. The competition adheres to UK Subsidy Control legislation and WTO Agreement on Agriculture rules.
Applications open on 21 August 2025 and close on 15 October 2025 at 11:00am UK time, with notifications expected by 13 November 2025. Projects can start from 1 March 2026. Support is available for applicants including the ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant to aid application preparation.
For more information, visit Innovate UK.
