UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £4.8million for feasibility projects. This funding is from the industry led R&D Partnerships Fund, part of the Farming Innovation Programme.

Competition opens: Monday 13 October 2025
Competition closes: Wednesday 3 December 2025 11:00am
Description
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £4.8 million to fund innovation projects in this competition. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received.
This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme which is delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.
We reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions under exceptional circumstances, for example, in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations, or broader government funding decisions.
The aim of this competition is to fund feasibility studies investigating new solutions that will address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.
The funding will support projects to:
- investigate early stage solutions that have the potential to substantially improve the overall productivity, sustainability and resilience of farming, and move existing agricultural sectors to net zero
- prioritise solutions that will have positive outputs for farmers, growers and foresters in commercially relevant situations
- accelerate research and development of new agricultural solutions by actively engaging collaboration with the wider UK research community in the innovation process
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 eligible costs of between £200,000 and £500,000
- last up to 24 months
- start by 1 July 2026
- end by 30 June 2028
Scope
Your Proposal
The aim of this competition is to fund feasibility studies investigating new solutions that will address major on-farm or immediate post farmgate challenges or opportunities.
Your solutions must significantly improve:
- productivity
- resilience
- sustainability and progression towards low emission farming
Your project must be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England.
Portfolio approach
We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets, themes and locations. 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:
- farmed animals
- plants
- novel food production systems
- bioeconomy and agroforestry
Research Categories
We will fund feasibility 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 equine specific
- involve wild caught fisheries
- involve aquaculture for fish production or human consumption
- involve cellular expression of proteins or cultivated meat
- involve acellular production systems, fermentation systems, bacteria, yeast or fungi for human consumption
- are for the production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use
We cannot fund projects that are:
- dependent on export performance, for example, giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
- dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example, giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product
Dates
- 13 October 2025 Pre-recorded webinar: watch the recordingBriefing slides are available to download from Supporting Information.
- 13 October 2025 Competition opens
- 14 October 2025 Live scope Q&A and consortium building 10:00am-12:00pm
- 3 December 2025 11:00am Competition closes
- 6 March 2026 Applicants notified
- 1 July 2026 Project start from
How to Apply
You must read the guidance on applying for a competition on the Innovation Funding Service before you start.
What we ask you
The application is split into three sections:
- Project details.
- Application questions.
- Finances