ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant: Round 1

Overview

Farmers, growers, or foresters in England can claim £2,500 to work with a registered Project Facilitator (like us!) to help prepare a Full ADOPT Grant application.

Scope

This competition is designed for farmers, growers and foresters based in England who are keen to test and trial new ideas or solutions on-farm and require support to develop a Full ADOPT Grant application.

The aim of this competition is to:

• provide a £2,500 grant for a farmer, grower or forester based in England to engage an external Project Facilitator to support with submissions into the Full ADOPT Grant competitions
• improve the quality of Full ADOPT Grant applications
• make ADOPT funding accessible to a wider range of applicants
• enhance the skills and expertise of the farming eco-system to engage with innovation funding

The project you intend to develop and submit as a Full ADOPT Grant application must be for an on-farm trial or experiment to test new ideas and solutions. This is to demonstrate to you and other farmers, growers or foresters if it works in real on-farm conditions.

Your project will need to address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities and it must have the potential to significantly improve one or more of the following:

• productivity
• resilience
• sustainability and progression towards net zero farming

Your proposal must demonstrate to other farmers, growers or foresters in England how the idea or solution will be of benefit to them.

Your project must focus on testing and trialling ideas or solutions that are either new or not yet widely used.

Specific themes

Your project must address a significant industry challenge or opportunity in at least one or more of the following sectors:

• agriculture
• horticulture
• agro-forestry

Funding

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has allocated up to £100,000, to provide support through the ADOPT Facilitator Support Grants. Funding will be in the form of a grant of £2,500 per successful applicant.

You can get 100% funding for your eligible project costs if you are an active farmer, grower or forester based in England.

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply for this competition, you must:

• engage with an external Project Facilitator that is registered in the Innovate UK Business Connect database
• work with the facilitator to develop and submit an eligible application for a Full ADOPT Grant competition

If you are successful in this competition you will need to provide evidence within six months of the funding being awarded that your Full ADOPT Grant application has been sent for assessment.

A total of £2,500 will be awarded per successful participant once the claim and evidence is submitted.

Project Facilitator

You must only include in the ‘other costs’ line of the finance section the name of the Project Facilitator you will be working with and the maximum grant amount of £2,500.

Lead organisation

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be an active farming, growing or forestry business of any size based in England
• be able to evidence that you are an established commercial business, including sole traders and partnerships
• have a UK bank account