Farming Futures R&D Fund: Low Emissions Farming

Summary

Defra is offering up to £12.5 million through the Farming Innovation Programme to support collaborative R&D projects that develop solutions to reduce emissions in UK farming. This funding focuses on tackling key on-farm and immediate post-farmgate challenges, accelerating the transition to low-emission agricultural practices.

To be eligible, projects must:

• Deliver ambitious innovations that cut emissions in current farming systems
• Include a full life cycle assessment (LCA)
• Provide measurable carbon impact and wider environmental benefits
• Support knowledge exchange across the sector
• Align with industry priorities and demonstrate clear benefits to farmers, growers, or foresters in England

Projects may also be subject to an independent LCA review before completion.

Scope

Your project must address at least one of the following five key areas:

Regenerative farming: for example, integration of regenerative techniques into productive systems for improved soil health, water quality and biodiversity.

Energy: for example, increasing efficiency in controlled environment agriculture, improved materials for glasshouses, or energy efficient machinery.

Methanisation: (or biomethanisation) is a process based on the natural fermentation of organic matter to produce biogas. Methanisation provides a use for organic waste, producing renewable energy and organic fertiliser. The biogas obtained from methanisation can be used directly to produce heat and electricity and consideration must be provided for the handling of any CH4 and CO2 bi-products, with a focus on on-farm utilisation.

Reducing GHG emission in livestock production: for example, methane inhibiting feed additives, novel housing systems or enhanced breeding.

Innovations to support land management: including productive paludicultural systems; agroforestry, energy crops and biomass production, deployment of biochar for carbon sequestration through application to land.

Key themes and topics

Your project must focus on one of the following:

• horticultural crops
• arable crops

Project duration

Up to 36 months

Must start by 1st January 2026

End by 31st December 2028

Award value

Have total costs of between £1 million and £2.5 million

Funding rates

For industrial research projects, purposeful research that builds new knowledge and skills to improve or develop products, processes, or services—often through prototypes or system components that validate ideas in realistic settings, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:

• up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
• up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
• up to 50% if you are a large organisation

Research organisations can share up to 50% of the total eligible project costs

Eligibility criteria

• Projects must be collaborative and led by a UK registered business of any size
• Projects must include at least one grant claiming SME
• Projects must address the specific requirements of precision breeding as set out in the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023‍
• The project must be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers or growers in England
• Collaborators can be a UK registered business of any size; an academic institution; a charity; a not for profit; a public sector organisation; or a research and technology organisation (RTO)
• Subcontractors must be preferably UK-based with fully justified and appropriate costs
• All funded project work must be carried out within the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• Subsidy control and state aid rules apply