Farming Futures: Environmental resilience - Industrial research
UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £12.5m across 2 strands to develop innovative solutions for sustainable and resilient farming.
The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) will invest up to £12.5 million in innovation projects. This funding is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, which is a partnership with UKRI’s Transforming Food Production Challenge and delivered by Innovate UK.
The aim of this competition is to fund collaborative development projects with ambitious solutions. Solutions provided will enable sustainable and resilient farming through addressing biotic and abiotic stresses in agriculture, horticulture and forestry to:
- support specific recommendations from recent Defra reviews, the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) act 2023 and the Government Food Strategy
- resolve key issues affecting the sector, where sustainable and resilient farming solutions can mitigate climate challenges and increase productivity
Your proposal must be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England.
This competition is split into 2 strands:
- Strand 1 – Farming Futures: Feasibility; evaluating emerging solutions with the UK’s world-leading research base, agri-tech businesses, SMEs and the UK agricultural sector to develop innovations in agriculture, forestry and horticulture (total costs £200k-£500k, duration 12-24 months)
- Strand 2 – Farming Futures: Industrial Research; progressing emerging solutions to new products, processes and services with the UK’s world-leading research base, agri-tech businesses, SMEs and the UK agricultural sector to develop innovations in agriculture, forestry and horticulture (this strand – total costs £500k-£1m, duration 24+ months).
This competition will address the challenges to plants, crops and farmed animals, from both their biological (biotic) and physical environments (abiotic).
It is your responsibility to ensure you submit your application to the correct strand for your project. The Innovate UK KTN Agrifood team will be able to advise you if in doubt.
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To lead a project your organisation must:
- be a UK registered business of any size
- collaborate with other UK registered organisations
To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
- business of any size
- academic institution
- charity
- not for profit
- public sector organisation
- research and technology organisation (RTO)
A business can only lead on one application in each strand but can be included as a collaborator in 2 further applications in each of the 2 strands of the competition. If you are successful you will be asked to confirm you have the capacity to run multiple projects simultaneously.
If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.
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Your project must:
- have total costs between £500,000 and £1 million
- start by 1 January 2024
- end by 31 December 2026
- end by 31 December 2028 for breeding projects
- last between 24 to 36 months or for breeding projects up to 60 months
- be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers, growers or foresters
- carry out all of its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
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The aim of this competition is to fund collaborative development of projects with ambitious solutions. Solutions provided will enable sustainable and resilient farming through addressing biotic and abiotic stresses in agriculture, horticulture and forestry to:
- support specific recommendations from recent Defra reviews, the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 and the Government Food Strategy
- resolve key issues affecting the sector, where sustainable and resilient farming solutions can mitigate climate challenges and increase productivity
- to further develop innovations in agriculture, forestry and horticulture for challenges to plants, crops and farmed animals from both their biological (biotic) and physical environment (abiotic)
The innovative technologies in your proposal could include one or more of the following biological (biotic) and physical environmental (abiotic) challenges:
- integrated pest management
- detection, prevention and management of diseases
- agro-ecology
- gene editing and breeding
- regenerative cropping, livestock and mixed systems
- livestock housing, nutrition, health and management
- innovative fertiliser practices
- soil resilience
- water management and innovation
This list is not exhaustive
Your project must seek to significantly improve:
- productivity
- sustainability and environmental impact of farming
- progression towards net zero emissions
- longer term resilience
- food security
You must be able to demonstrate how your solution and output will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England.
Your proposal must:
- demonstrate environmental benefits and societal impact
- ensure your solutions are closely aligned with industry priorities to deliver business-orientated and transformative opportunities
- consider how it will encourage dissemination and knowledge exchange to the wider sector
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Your project must focus on one or more of the following agricultural and horticultural production sectors:
Farmed animals
- monogastric
- ruminant
Plant
- broadacre: cereals, root crops, grassland
- horticulture: field based and specialist growers
- fruit: top fruit, stone fruit and soft fruit
- vineyard
- protected cropping: glass and polytunnel systems
- controlled environment and vertical farming systems
Forestry
- agro-forestry
Cross-sector
- bioeconomy
Exclusions
We are not funding projects that:
- are equine specific
- are focused specifically on financial resilience
- are specific to non-food or ornamental plants
- 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 for bacteria, yeast or fungi for human consumption
- are for the production of crops or plants for medicinal or pharmaceutical use
- do not benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England
- involve post farm gate processing and packaging
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Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance.
Applicants must ensure that all of the proposed work within projects, both that in the UK and internationally, will comply with the UKRI guidance on the use of animals in research and innovation.
Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations and compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made.
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Innovate UK and Defra have prepared a recorded briefing (May 2023): view the recording here.
An online competition Q&A and consortium building event was held on 8th June 2023: view the recording and slides here.
If you would like help to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK KTN’s Agrifood team.
If you would like to book a 1:1 meeting with a member of Innovate UK KTN’s AgriFood team to discuss your queries related to the Farming Futures: Environmental Resilience Competition, click here.