Farming Innovation Programme: Feasibility Round 4

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £4.8 million to fund innovation projects in this competition. This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme which is delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.

The aim of this competition is to fund feasibility studies investigating new solutions that will address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.

The funding will support projects to:

• Investigate early-stage solutions that have the potential to substantially improve the overall productivity, sustainability, and resilience of farming, and move existing agricultural sectors to net zero
• Prioritise solutions that will have positive outputs for farmers, growers, and foresters in commercially relevant situations
• Accelerate research and development of new agricultural solutions by actively engaging collaboration with the wider UK research community in the innovation process

Your project must address a significant industry challenge or opportunity in at least one of the four industry subsectors below:

• Farmed animals
• Plants
• Novel food production systems
• Bioeconomy and agroforestry

Your proposal must be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers, growers, or foresters in England.

To lead a collaborative project your organisation must:

• Be a UK business of any size, including sole traders and partnerships
• Be able to evidence that you are an established commercial business, including sole traders and partnerships
• Collaborate with other UK-registered organisations
• Involve at least one other grant-claiming business of any size