Farming Futures R&D Fund: Precision Breeding Competition

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

The aim of this competition is to fund collaborative industrial research projects to unlock the benefits of precision breeding in developing ambitious new solutions leading to more sustainable and productive farming practices in at least one of the following two farming subsectors:

• Horticultural crops
• Arable crops

Projects must address the specific requirements of precision breeding as set out in the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023.

Projects in this competition should deliver on ambitious new solutions that can help realise a range of improvements to existing crop production, including but not limited to:

• Increased crop yield: quality and quantity
• Increased plant resilience to pests, diseases, and pathogens
• Increased plant resilience to climate change and resistance to abiotic stresses
• Enhanced photosynthesis or reduced crop growth cycles
• Improved crop harvesting and storage characteristics
• Improved nutritional value of crops, for example, biofortification
• Reduced allergens and toxins in crops
• Improved palatability and visual appeal of crops
• Increased shelf life of crops

Your project must:

• Demonstrate clear project deliverables that will enable improved resilience, sustainability, and productivity for farmers or growers in England
• Ensure concepts are closely aligned with industry priorities to deliver business-orientated transformative opportunities
• Encourage dissemination and knowledge exchange of precision breeding technologies and their potential benefit to the wider sector and increase the maturity or market readiness of emerging solutions
• Evidence how precision breeding approaches can help to provide benefit for farmers or growers in England

To lead a project, your organisation must:

• Be a UK-registered business of any size
• Collaborate with at least one other UK-registered organisation
• To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK-registered:
• Business of any size
• Academic institution
• Charity
• Not-for-profit
• Public sector organisation
• Research and technology organisation (RTO)

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.