New Defra Secretary Steve Barclay has announced that almost £45 million in competitions and grants will open in the coming weeks as part of the Government’s ongoing investment to help farmers ‘foster innovation, boost productivity and improve animal welfare’.
Mr Barclay, the former Health Secretary, replaced Thérèse Coffey in November and made his first major speech in the role at the Country Land and Business Association conference in London on November 30.
He announced an ‘initial’ £30m in the second round of the Improving Farming Productivity Grant, providing capital grants of £25,000 – £500,000 towards robotic and automatic equipment, with further funding potentially available depending on levels of interest. For the first time, it will fund grants of between £15,000 and £100,000 towards solar equipment which can be fitted on rooftops and float on irrigation reservoirs.
Almost £8m will also be available in the third round of the Large R&D Partnership, a competition to boost industrial research and experimental development projects, and a further £850,000 through the Research Starter Round 4 competition to identify and accelerate new agricultural solutions, funding growers or foresters who have ‘bold, ambitious, early-stage ideas’.
He also launched third round of the £5m Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund (NEIRF), which provides grants of up to £100,000 to support farmers to prepare nature projects that will help attract investment from the private sector.
He revealed that next year will see the extension of the Farming Innovation Programme grants to include the Accelerating Development of Practices and Technologies (ADOPT) fund, where businesses will be able to apply for a share of £44 million to test and trial new technology and techniques on farms.
Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, run in partnership with Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), has committed over £125 million in funding to date and supported 150 projects involving 400 organisations.
“My pledge to you is that this government will always back British farmers who produce some of the highest quality food in the world, contribute billions to our economy, and to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude for taking care of our countryside,” he told the CLA’s Rural Business Conference.