Farming Futures: automation and robotics, experimental development

Overview

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £12.5 million in innovation projects.

This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, which is delivered in partnership with UKRI’s Transforming Food Production Challenge.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to fund collaborative projects with ambitious solutions for robotics and automation in agriculture and horticulture by:

supporting specific recommendation for automation innovation funding from recent Defra reviews including the Automation in Horticulture Review (specifically recommendations 2 and 3) and the Government Food Strategy
addressing key issues affecting the sector, where automation and robotics can mitigate challenges in for example, labour availability or input costs through better resource use and efficiency

In this strand 2 for experimental development, you must accelerate the deployment and uptake of innovation for robotics and automation in agriculture and horticulture that is almost at commercial stage.

The innovative technologies in your proposal must focus on one or more of the following:

robotic and automated machines and systems for static or mobile operation
imaging, sensing, and monitoring devices and systems to collect and store data and associated systems to process data for management records and to drive management decisions and automated actions
systems for on-farm processing and packing operations

Your project must seek to significantly improve:

productivity
sustainability and environmental impact of farming
progression towards net zero emissions
longer term resilience

You must be able to demonstrate how the solution and output will benefit farmers, or growers in England.

Your project must:

demonstrate environmental benefits and societal impact
include clear project deliverables for measuring the sustainability of your solutions, and how they are preventing negative impact upon the sector
ensure your solutions are closely aligned with industry priorities to deliver business-orientated and transformative opportunities
consider how it will encourage dissemination and knowledge exchange to the wider sector

Specific Themes

Your project must focus on one or more of the following agricultural and horticultural production sectors:

Livestock

Monogastric
Ruminant

Plant

Broadacre: cereals, root crops, grassland
Horticulture: field based and specialist growers
Fruit: top fruit, stone fruit and soft fruit
Vineyard
Protected cropping: glass and polytunnel systems
Controlled Environment and Vertical Farming Systems

Eligibility

If you are successful, any awards given to primary agricultural producers are subject to the green box exemption, under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture.

Please see further guidance on green box subsidies in the WTO Guidance for support in Agriculture. Applicants receiving this type of support must ensure that there is minimal to no distortion of trade and comply with the requirements of Annex 2 of the Agriculture Agreement.

Your project must:

have total costs between £750,000 and £1,500,000
start by 1 September 2023
end by 31 August 2025 for 24 month duration projects
end by 31 August 2026 for 36 month duration projects
be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers or growers in England
carry out all of its project work in the UK
intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

You must only include eligible project costs in your application.

Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian and Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian and Belarusian source.

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be a UK based farmer or grower, or a UK registered:

business of any size
academic institution
charity
not for profit
public sector organisation
research and technology organisation (RTO)

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account and enter their own project costs into the Innovation Funding Service.

To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.

Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, for example non-UK businesses. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

A business can only lead on one application in each strand of this competition. A business can also be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications in each of the 2 strands of the competition.

If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications across both strands of the competition.

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that:

are equine specific
are forestry specific
are specific to non-food or ornamental plants
involve wild caught fisheries
involve aquaculture for fish production or human consumption
involve cellular expression of proteins or cultivated meat
involve acellular production systems, fermentation systems for bacteria, yeast or fungi for human consumption
are for the production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use
do not benefit farmers or growers in England
involve post farm gate processing and packaging

Innovate UK cannot fund projects that are:

dependent on export performance, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country

dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

Funding Costs

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has allocated up to £12.5 million to fund innovation projects across the two strands of this competition. Defra will be working in partnership with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Transforming Food Production Challenge to deliver this competition.

Funding will be in the form of a grant.

If your project has farmers or growers requesting grant funding, a minimum of 50% of the total grant amount requested by those organisations, must come from farmers or growers geographically based in England.

The total funding available for the competition can change. The funders have the right to:

adjust the funding allocations between the two competition strands
apply a ‘portfolio’ approach

If your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.

For Experimental Development projects which are nearer to market, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

up to 45% if you are a micro or small organisation
up to 35% if you are a medium sized organisation
up to 25% if you are a large organisation

Back

R&D Tax Credits

Grant Funding

Other Services

Insights

Events