The Farming Innovation Programme is part of Defra’s investment in innovation, research and development.

Defra is partnering with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to fund projects that benefit farmers, growers and foresters in England. 

All funding will be awarded through competitions. This means applications for each competition will be judged, and only the successful ones will be funded. 

The programme’s aims are to: 

• help farmers, growers and foresters increase productivity, sustainability and resilience
• reduce the environmental impact of agriculture and horticulture
• apply agricultural research to provide real benefits for farmers, growers and foresters
• use science to develop solutions for the practical challenges in agriculture and horticulture

To get funding, you must work in collaboration with a team.

Once the competition is open, Innovate UK KTN can help you find the right people to work with (opens in new window) on your project. 

Which competition to apply for

You should consider the type of work you want to do and the amount of funding available. 

You want to	Competition name	Project size	Length (up to)	Who can lead
Explore an idea and develop a team	Research Starter	£28-56K	1 year	UK Businesses
Check if an idea works in practice	Feasibility Studies	£200-500K	2 years	UK Businesses
Develop a new product or service	Small R&D partnerships Large R&D partnerships	£1-3 million £3-5 million	3 years 4 years	UK Businesses UK Businesses
Work on longer-term innovations	Farming Futures R&D	£200K – 6 million	2 to 5 years	Research organisations or UK businesses

Plan ahead – competition schedule

Competitions will be published on the Innovation Funding Service (opens in new window) as they open, with full eligibility and application information for each one. 

You can find early information here to help you plan ahead.

Competition name	Opens	Closes	Status
Farming Futures (theme 3: Automation and robotics)	January 2023	TBC	Upcoming

More about the Farming Innovation Programme

Funding will be awarded through a range of competitions from 2021 for a number of years. 

This is part of Defra’s Future Farming and Countryside Programme (opens in new window).

All the competitions in the programme have been developed so that insights from science and business can be applied to challenges in agriculture and horticulture.

We want to encourage this collaboration to develop solutions and improvements that can meet real environmental and industry challenges.

Previous competitions

You can check dates for previous competition rounds.

Competition name	Opened	Closed	Status
Small R&D partnerships (round 2)	31 Aug 22	02 Nov 22	Closed
Feasibility Studies (round 2)	31 Aug 22	12 Oct 22	Closed
Farming Futures (theme 2: sustainable farm-based proteins)	25 Jul 22	21 Sep 22	Closed
Research Starter (round 2)	23 May 22	06 Jul 22	Closed
Large R&D partnerships (round 1)	30 Mar 22	29 Jun 22	Closed
Farming Futures (theme 1: climate smart farming)	30 Mar 22	18 May 22	Closed
Research Starter (round 1)	20 Oct 21	24 Nov 21	Closed
Feasibility (round 1)	20 Oct 21	01 Dec 21	Closed
Small R&D partnerships (round 1)	20 Oct 21	01 Dec 21	Closed