Farming Futures R&D Fund opens

Fund aiming to help increase domestic production of healthy and sustainable protein is now open for applications

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has opened a £12.5m competition to support research and innovation in development of products such as methane reducing animal feeds and high protein crops.

Farmers, growers, foresters, businesses and researchers are invited to apply with projects to help increase domestic production of healthy and sustainable protein.

The aim is to accelerate the development of novel and disruptive technologies to create new sources of resource efficient, low-emission proteins, leading to a more sustainable farming model for the future. This will help improve farming productivity, resilience in the sector and move existing agricultural sectors towards net zero.

Your project must be in one or more of the four industry subsectors:

• livestock
• plants
• novel animal feed production systems (such as algae, seaweed, insects, etc)
• bioeconomy and agroforestry

The competition is split into two strands.

Strand 1: Feasibility studies

This strand is for feasibility studies with total projects costs of between £200,000 and £500,000.

Your project must:

• start by 1 April 2023
• end by 31 March 2025
• last up to 24 months
• be collaborative
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in England
• have a minimum of 50 per cent of any grant that is requested by farmers, growers or foresters, allocated to farmers, growers or foresters based in England

Find out more about the Farming Futures R&D Fund: Sustainable farm-based protein, feasibility studies competition and how to apply.

Strand 2: Industrial research

This strand is for industrial research with total projects costs of between £500,000 and £1 million.

Your project must:

• start by 1 April 2023
• be collaborative
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in England
• have a minimum of 50 per cent of any grant that is requested by farmers, growers or foresters, allocated to farmers, growers or foresters based in England

For non-breeding projects, your project must:

• end by 31 March 2025
• last up to 24 months

For breeding projects only, your project:

• must end by 31 March 2028
• can last up to 60 months

Find out more about the Farming Futures R&D Fund: Sustainable farm-based protein, industrial research competition and how to apply.