Farming Futures R&D fund: Automation and Robotics Round 2

Overview

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) is investing up to £20 million in collaborative innovation projects developing ambitious robotics and automation solutions for agriculture, horticulture and forestry.

Delivered through Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme in partnership with Innovate UK, the competition is focused on technologies that can improve productivity, resource efficiency, sustainability and resilience while addressing challenges such as seasonal labour availability, food quality and traceability, waste, crop and animal health, and animal welfare.

Projects must demonstrate a clear benefit for farmers or growers in England and should support the adoption of automation and robotics where these technologies can create meaningful, practical improvements across the sector.

Scope

Projects must develop ambitious robotics and automation solutions for agriculture, horticulture or forestry that:

• address key sector challenges where automation and robotics can improve productivity, resource use efficiency, food quality and traceability, waste reduction, crop and animal health, animal welfare or sustainability
• reduce reliance on seasonal agricultural labour where automation and robotics are the most viable solution
• support relevant recommendations for automation innovation funding from Defra reviews, including the Automation in Horticulture review
• align with the government’s Modern Industrial Strategy, which identifies Agri-Tech as a Frontier Industry within the Advanced Manufacturing sector plan

The innovative technologies must focus on one or more of the following and be applicable to agriculture, horticulture or forestry:

• robotic and intelligent automated machines and systems for static or mobile operation
• imaging, sensing and monitoring devices and systems that collect and store data, alongside intelligent systems that process data for management records, decision-making and automated actions
• post-harvest automation for on-farm and immediate post-farm-gate operations only, including horticultural and field crop preparation, packing and supply chain systems
• intelligent systems for on-farm food storage management and monitoring
• intelligent systems for on-farm energy management and monitoring

Projects must seek to significantly improve:

• productivity
• sustainability and the environmental impact of farming
• progression towards net zero emissions
• longer-term resilience

Projects must demonstrate how the solution and its outputs will benefit farmers or growers in England.

Projects must also:

• demonstrate environmental benefits and societal impact
• include clear deliverables for measuring the sustainability of the proposed solutions and how negative impacts on the sector will be prevented
• ensure solutions are closely aligned with industry priorities and create business-orientated, transformative opportunities
• consider how knowledge will be disseminated and exchanged across the wider sector

Key themes and topics

Projects must focus on one or more of the following agricultural, horticultural and forestry production sectors:

Farmed animals

• monogastric
• ruminant

Plant

• broadacre: cereals, root crops, grassland and forage crops
• horticulture: field-based and specialist nursery growers
• fruit: top fruit, stone fruit and soft fruit
• orchard
• vineyard
• protected cropping: glass and polytunnel systems
• controlled environment and vertical farming systems
• ornamental plant propagation, growing and monitoring where the technology can also be applied to food production
• forestry for tree nursery and planting operations, and woodland monitoring and management. Heavy equipment and harvesting operations are excluded

Projects will not be funded if they:

• are equine specific
• involve wild-caught fisheries
• involve aquaculture for fish production or human consumption
• involve cellular expression of proteins for human consumption or cultivated meat
• involve acellular production systems or 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
• are relevant only to non-food or ornamental plants
• involve forestry harvesting operations and associated heavy equipment
• involve food processing and manufacturing
• primarily develop another product or technology where automation only supports the main product or technology
• are dependent on export performance
• are dependent on domestic input usage

Project duration

12 to 36 months

Must start on 1 March 2027

End by 28 February 2030

Award value

Grant funding request must be between £500,000 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, applicants can receive funding for eligible project costs of:

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

Research organisations undertaking non-economic activity can share up to 30% of the total eligible project costs.

Eligibility criteria

• Projects must be collaborative and led by a UK registered business of any size
• Collaborators can be a UK based farmer, forester or grower; 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. Overseas subcontractors can be used where applicants provide a clear justification for why a UK subcontractor cannot be used
• All funded project work must be carried out within the UK
• Funded organisations must intend to exploit the results in the UK
• Subsidy control and State aid rules apply