Learn more about the Farmer Welfare Grant

Earlier this month, we wrote a post introducing the Farmer Welfare Grant. 

A total of £1.5 million will be available over 3 years to support farmer mental health and wellbeing across England. 

The funding is intended to help rural and agricultural charities and organisations deliver practical support that strengthens both personal and business resilience across the sector.  

While the application portal will not open until 6 August, we are sharing additional information in advance to help organisations considering an application. This includes details of 2 upcoming webinars.

Guidance, including the technical eligibility criteria, will be available when the portal opens. 

Who can apply 

Funding is only available to organisations with experience of supporting farming communities, not for individual farm businesses. 

Any charitable or third-sector not-for-profit organisation registered in England can apply for funding if it can demonstrate its ability to deliver a suitable project. 

For-profit organisations may also be eligible to apply as part of a consortium led by an eligible organisation, provided they can demonstrate how both the project and their role contribute to meeting the funding criteria. 

We want grant recipients to develop support that responds to the specific needs of farming communities. For this reason, we are not prescribing the types of activities or approaches applicants should propose. 

That said, applications that support the following priorities are particularly encouraged:

• Tackling isolation and reaching people who are less likely to access or benefit from existing support 
• Promoting prevention and early intervention, helping people to build resilience before issues escalate 
• Reducing stigma around mental health and seeking support 
• Removing barriers to accessing personal and business resilience support 
• Supporting a joined-up approach to farm safety, physical health, mental health and business resilience 
• Preventing suicide and supporting those at risk 
• Supporting those who work with farmers, including intermediaries and allied industries, as well as farmers' families and wider support networks 
• Engaging young farmers and helping them to remain connected to strong rural communities over the long term 
• Strengthening culture, local identity and social connections within farming communities 
• Providing business resilience advice and support, including succession planning, change management, and leaving the industry 
• Building skills, confidence and capacity in farmers and the rural community

Funding can be used to cover both one-off and ongoing costs. This may include overheads, venue hire, materials, equipment, service delivery costs, and staffing costs where these are directly related to the project. 

The exact number of projects will be determined by the amount and nature of applications we receive. 

We’ll consider both individual projects and joint projects involving multiple organisations.

Applications are invited for grants of between £1,000 and £200,000 per year, covering expenditure incurred between November 2026 and March 2029. 

How to apply 

To apply, you must do so through an application portal. We will blog again when the portal opens.  

As part of the application, you'll need to: 

• explain why funding is needed 
• describe who will benefit from the project 
• estimate how many people are expected to benefit 
• explain how you will use funding effectively to make a difference 
• show how the project has been designed to meet the needs of the target group

Once the application window has closed, the applications will be reviewed and scored by a team from Defra. Funding decisions will be made after all applications have been assessed. 

Dates to note 

Thursday 6 August – Application portal opens. Full guidance available.

Thursday 13 August, 2pm–3pm – Join our first webinar to learn more about the grant, guidance and eligibility criteria. A recording will be shared in this post after the session.

Monday 17 August, 10am–11am – Join our second webinar for a walkthrough of the application portal and application process. A recording will be shared in this post after the session

Wednesday 9 September, 11:59 am– Application portal closes.

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