Full ADOPT Grant: Round 8

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.

Competition opens:   Thursday 4 June 2026
Competition closes: Wednesday 29 July 2026 11:00am

Description

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £5 million for on-farm trials and farm experiment projects. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received.

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 one or more of the following:

• productivity
• resilience
• sustainability and 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.

Project size

Your project’s total costs must be between £50,000 and £200,000.

Eligibility

Who can apply

Your project

If your application passes the technical assessment, any awards given to primary agricultural producers are subject to the green box exemption under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.

See further guidance on green box subsidies WTO Guidance for support in Agriculture. Applicants receiving this type of support must ensure that there is minimal to no distortion of trade and comply with the requirements of Annex 2 of the Agriculture Agreement.

Your project must:

• have total costs between £50,000 and £200,000
• last between 6 and 24 months
• start by 1 December 2026
• end by 30 November 2028
• 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
• collaborate with at least one other UK farmer, grower or forester that is claiming grant funding

Any organisation receiving funding must carry out its project work in the UK, intend to exploit the results in the UK, and spend most of the funding within the UK.

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.

You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs.

Scope

Your Proposal

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 and 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.

We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, technological maturity, markets, theme, practices and processes, farming sectors and regions. We call this a portfolio approach.

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

Research Categories

We will fund industrial research projects as defined in the guidance on categories of research.

Projects We Will Not Fund

We are not funding projects that:

• do not benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England
• are based on funded crop variety plot trials
• are based on existing demonstration trials or projects
• are for the production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use
• are for cultivated meat
• are based on equine systems
• involve wild caught fisheries
• involve aquaculture, such as algae and seaweed for human consumption
• involve fermentation systems for bacteria, yeast or fungi for human consumption

We cannot fund projects that are:

• dependent on export performance: giving a subsidy to an organisation on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of its products to another country
• dependent on domestic inputs usage: giving a subsidy to an organisation on the condition that it uses a set percentage of UK components in their product

Dates

• 29 May 2026  ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant Rd 9 open date
• 04 June 2026 Recorded briefing scope and process: watch the scope recording and watch the process recording
• 04 June 2026  Competition opens
• 29 July 2026 11:00am Competition Closes  
• 30 July 2026 Full ADOPT Grant Rd 9 open date
• 09 September 2026 Applicants notified
• 01 December 2026 Project start by

How to Apply

You must read the guidance on applying for a competition on the Innovation Funding Service before you start.

Before submitting, it is the lead applicant’s responsibility to make sure:

• that all the information provided in the application is correct
• your proposal meets the eligibility and scope criteria
• all sections of the application are marked as complete
• that all partners have completed all assigned sections and accepted the terms and conditions (T&Cs)

You can reopen your application once submitted, up until the competition deadline. You must resubmit the application before the competition deadline.

What we ask you

The application is split into three sections:

1. Project details.
2. Application questions.
3. Finances.

How to Apply

Do you need a project facilitator? Our team have already successfully helped multiple teams win ADOPT grant funding. Speak to one of our consultants, such as Jim, about how you can have a successful application too.