From 9 January 2023, farmers, growers and agritech businesses in England will be able to apply for funding to develop innovative ideas in the areas of robotics and automation. In this post, I’ll give an overview of the competition, dates for your diary and links for you to find out more.
From the end of this month, £16.5 million will be available through 2 new research and development competitions. There is no set theme for these competitions as we don’t want to create barriers to innovation. However, all projects must focus on improving the productivity, environmental sustainability and resilience of England’s agricultural, horticultural and forestry sectors. In this post, I'll give an overview and an update on the previous rounds.
We’re inviting farmers, growers, foresters, businesses and researchers to apply for a share of £12.5 million to focus on the research and development of sustainable farm-based proteins.
The Farming Innovation Programme provides research and development funding to farmers and growers who want to develop and use new, innovative methods and technologies. The aim of the fund is to support farmers to become more productive, environmentally sustainable and resilient to the global food security challenges of the future. You might remember that alongside UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) we launched the first rounds of funding in October, and 2 more in March. In this post, I’ll share information about our latest funding opportunity: the Research Starter Projects Competition.
From today, Wednesday 30 March, you can apply for a share of £20.5 million funding in 2 new competitions in the Farming Innovation Programme in partnership with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
In October, we launched the first rounds of funding in our Farming Innovation Programme. As we've been processing the applications, we've seen a promising spread of ideas across the livestock, horticulture and broadacre sub-sectors. These ideas are coming in from across the whole of England. In this post, I'll share next steps and what to look out for this year.
In the seventh episode of the Future Farming podcast, Tim Mordan, Defra’s Head of Farming Innovation, Productivity and Science talks to Rui Andrês, CEO of Fieldwork Robotics, about their innovative raspberry robot picker.
In the sixth episode of the Future Farming Podcast, Programme Director Janet Hughes talks to Tim Parton. Tim is Farm Manager at Brewood Park Farm, Staffordshire, where he manages 300 hectares using regenerative agriculture methods. Find out how Tim moved to no-till, reduced insecticide and fungicide use and brewed his own nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
The UK's devolved administrations already work closely to ensure their policies are aligned. However, to share scientific ideas, solutions and innovations, Defra set up the UK Agriculture Partnership. It launched today and we'd like to share a little more about it in this post.
At the end of last year, we published a manual on the Improving Farm Productivity grant, which is part of the Farming Transformation Fund. Today we opened the window for applications. We’re also hosting a webinar next week for you to find out more.
Come and talk to us at these agricultural shows in 2024.
