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 millon
Opens: 29th May 2026
Closes: 3rd Jun 2026
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 experiment to test ideas or solutions and demonstrate that they will address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.
Projects must follow one of the following specific themes:
To be eligible for this competition, your project must pass the technical assessment and have total costs of between £50,000 and £100,000. Projects last between 6 and 24 months starting by 1st November 2026 and ending 31st October 2028.
Lead Organisation: To lead a protect, organisations must be an active farming, growing or forestry business of any size based in England and with a UK bank account. You need to be able to evidence that you are an established commercial business and collaborate with at least one other farming, growing or forestry business of any size. Academic institutions can not work alone.
Project Team: To collaborate with a lead, your organisation must be a farmer, grower or forester based in the UK. You can also collaborate with the lead if you are a business of any size, academic institute, charity, not for profit, public sector organisation, research organisation or research and technology organisation.
Non-funded Partners: Projects can include organisations that do not claim funding for their work on the project. These costs must be covered from their own resources and can include UK, EU, and other non-UK organisations. Non-UK partners are permitted to carry out project work from within their home countries so long as results are exploited outside the UK.
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.
Number of applications: Farmers, growers and foresters can only lead on one application but can be included in two further applications. If an organisation is not leading an application it can collaborate in any number of applications.
Previous Applications: Previously submitted applications can be used in this competition.
Defra will not fund the following projects:
Defra alongside Innovation UK has allocated up to £5 million to fund on-farm trial projects. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
A minimum of 50% of the total grant requested by farmers, growers or foresters must be allocated to farmers, growers or foresters based in England.
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
1.Research organisations must use the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) method as the Je-S form has now been decommissioned.
2.We pay 100% of the 80% Full Economic Cost (FEC). On IFS only enter the 80% being claimed.
To find out more see our: Cost Guidance for Academics.
Book an appointment to speak to one of our advisors to discuss your eligibility to apply for this Grant Funding opportunity.
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