ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant: Round 5

Farming, growing or forestry businesses based in England can apply for a grant of £2,500, to engage an external Project Facilitator to support the development of a Full ADOPT Grant application.

Competition opens: Thursday 16 October 2025
Competition closes: Wednesday 26 November 2025 11:00am

Description

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £100,000 to support the development of applications for on-farm trials and farm experiment projects.

This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.

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

Eligibility

Who can apply

Your project

If you are successful in the Full ADOPT Grants, 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.

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 that your Full ADOPT Grant application has been sent for assessment.
• submit a claim within six months of receiving your Grant Offer letter

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

Project Facilitator

The Project Facilitator is the person who will be working with you to submit a Full ADOPT Grant application. They must be registered in the Innovate UK Business Connect database.

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. You will also be required to include their name in Question 9 in the ‘How to apply’ section.

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

Organisations that are not profit driven or do not have a commercial focus, including Community Interest Companies (CICs) and charities, are not allowed to participate in this competition.

More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.

Scope

Your Proposal

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.

Portfolio Approach

We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets, themes, 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

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, or fermentation systems for bacteria, yeast or fungi for human consumption

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

• 16 October 2025: Recorded briefing, scope and process: watch the recording
• 16 October 2025: Competition opens
• 23 October 2025: Full ADOPT Grant Rd 4 open date
• 26 November 2025 11:00am: Competition closes
• 13 January 2025: Applicants notified
• 1 March 2026: Support Grant starts from

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

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

What they ask you:

The application is split into three sections:

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