Key Features
Farming, growing or forestry businesses based in England can apply for a share of up to £5 million for on-farm trial and demonstration projects, to improve adoption of new ideas or solutions in the agricultural sector.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £5 million
Opens: 8th Oct 2026
Closes: 2nd Dec 2026
Innovate UK alongside the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will invest up to £5 million for on-farm trials and farm experiment projects.
The aim of this competition is to support innovative on-farm trials or experiments to test ideas or solutions and demonstrate that they will address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.
Projects must address a significant industry challenge or opportunity in at least one or more of the following sectors:
If your application passes the technical assessment, an y awards given to primary agricultural producers are subject to the green box exemption under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.
To be eligible, projects must have the total costs of between £50,000 and £200,000 with projects lasting between 6 and 24 months. Projects must start by 1st April 2027 and end by 31st March 2029. Organisations that receive funding must carry out project work in the UK, intend to exploit the results in the UK and spend most of their funding within the UK.
Lead organisation: To lead a collaborative project you must be an active farming, growing or forestry business of any size based in England. You must be able to evidence that you are an established commercial business and have an eligible UK bank account. You must collaborate with at least one other farming, growing or forestry business of any size, based in the UK. Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.
Project team: To collaborate with the lead, you must be an active farmer, grower or forester based in the UK. You can collaborate with the lead applicant if you are a UK registered business of any size, academic institution, charity, not for profit, public sector organisation, research organisation or research and technology organisation. Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. No single organisation can claim more than 70% of the total project costs.
Subcontractors: Subcontractors are allowed in this competition and can be from anywhere in the UK. Overseas subcontractors can be used but you must state why UK subcontractors could not be used in your application.
Number of applications: An eligible organisation can only lead on one application. Further applications by the same organisation will be ineligible. An eligible organisation that is leading an application can be included as a collaborator in two further applications. If they are not leading, they can collaborate in any number or applications.
Non-funded partners: Projects can include organisations that do not claim funding for their work on the project. These costs need to be covered from their own resources and they can include UK. EU and other non-UK organisations. Non-UK partners are permitted to carry out project work from within their home countries and exploit results outside the UK. If non-funded partners have been invited to the application on IFS, any costs will count towards the total eligible project costs.
Previous applications: Previously submitted applications can be used in this competition.
Innovate UK will not fund the following projects:
Defra is working alongside Innovate UK to invest up to £5 million to fund on-farm trial projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
A minimum of 50% of the total grant amount requested by farmers, growers and foresters must be allocated to farmers, growers or foresters based in England.
If your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, funding requests 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.
The balance between your total eligible project costs and the amount of grant awarded must be funded by the organisation receiving the grant.
For industrial research projects, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:
Research participation
The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 60% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that 60% you can get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:
Eligibility criteria for claiming 80% of FEC funding
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