Full ADOPT Grant Round 2

Overview

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £2 million for on-farm trials and farm experiment projects. This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.

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.

Your project must have the potential to significantly improve productivity, resilience, sustainability, or progression towards net zero farming.

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

Scope

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.

Your project must have the potential to significantly improve one or more of:

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

Your project must focus on testing and trialling ideas or solutions that are either new or not yet widely used. You must demonstrate to other English farmers, growers or foresters how the project will benefit them.

You must outline how you will communicate and share the outputs from your trial or experiment during and after your project.

Key themes and topics

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

• agriculture
• horticulture
• agro-forestry

Project duration

• Must last between 6 and 24 months
• Must start by 1 January 2026
• Must end by 31 December 2027

Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. You must not start your project until your Grant Offer Letter has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean we need to delay your project start date.

Award value

Your project’s total costs must be between £50,000 and £100,000.

Funding rates

A minimum of 50% of the total grant amount requested by farmers, growers and foresters must be allocated to farmers, growers or foresters geographically based in England.

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.

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:

• Up to 80% if you are an active farming, growing or forestry business based in England, Wales or Scotland
• Up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation, including active farming, growing or forestry businesses based in Northern Ireland
• Up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
• Up to 50% if you are a large organisation

Research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 60% of the total eligible project costs. Of that 60%, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:

• up to 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic
• up to 100% of your eligible project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation

Eligibility criteria

• Have total costs between £50,000 and £100,000
• Last between 6 and 24 months
• Start by 1 January 2026
• End by 31 December 2027
• Intend to exploit the results from or in England
• Carry out all of its project work in the UK
• Embrace open innovation principles and be willing to share results with other farmers, growers or foresters
• Have a Project Facilitator as part of the project team who is listed in the ADOPT Innovate UK Business Connect database

ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant: Round 2

This competition offers £2,500 to farmers, growers, or foresters in England to engage a registered Project Facilitator to help prepare a future Full ADOPT Grant application. While the support grant won’t be awarded in time to cover services for Round 2, having a listed Project Facilitator (like us!) in your team is a requirement for eligibility. We're here to support you with your current or future application. Book a free consultation to get started.