Tech

guidance now available – Farming

Published

10 months ago

February 20, 2024

Admin

Credit: David S

You will soon be able to apply for a grant through the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF).

To help you prepare, we’ve published the FETF grant guidance on GOV.UK.

In this post, I’ll give an overview of the grants and include details of an upcoming webinar for you to learn more.

Grants to improve Productivity, Slurry management and Animal Health and Welfare

The Farming Equipment and Technology Fund provides grants for equipment and technology that support improvements in:

productivity
slurry management
animal health and welfare.

You can apply for one grant from each of the 3 themes.

The fund is competitive. The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) will allocate funding after all applications within an application window have been received and scored. You may not receive any, or all of the funding you apply for.

Successful applicants will receive a grant of:

a minimum of £1,000 and a maximum of £50,000 towards productivity items
a minimum of £1,000 and a maximum of £50,000 towards slurry items
a minimum of £1,000 and a maximum of £25,000 towards animal health and welfare items

We will pay a percentage of the cost depending on the item. For many items, this percentage is an increase on last year. This funding will go towards either:

the average cost of the item – if an item costs you the same or more than the expected average cost on the item lists
the actual cost you pay for the item – if an item costs you less than the expected average cost on the item list.

What’s new for 2024

New for 2024, the fund is now split into 3 separate grants: productivity, slurry and animal health and welfare equipment.

We have increased the maximum grant amounts for productivity and slurry, so you can now apply for up to £50,000 for each of these themes.

The maximum grant amount for animal health and welfare remains at £25,000.

This means you could receive up to £125,000 in total, towards the purchase of new equipment and technology.

Further to these improvements, we have also increased the grant amount available for most items from last year.

This year there will be multiple application windows. We’ll let you know when these are open for applications.

There is also a new Farming Investment Fund application service to make it easier to apply for FETF grants. You will need to register for the new Farming Investment Fund application service to submit your application when this is launched.

Productivity

Applications for productivity items are scored on:

productivity benefit 
environmental benefit 
level of adoption by the industry

There are now 85 different items of productivity equipment, and you can apply for a grant towards the cost of any of these items.

We’ve put them into categories to make it easier to find equipment that is relevant to you – but please do look in all the categories as there may be relevant items there too.

Following suggestions captured in our survey, we are including 24 new items of productivity equipment for the first time in this new round including:

tractor powered electric desiccator for weed and plant control
combine mounted weed seed reduction system
drone for spraying whitewash on to glasshouses
closed transfer system for sprayers for containers
solar powered water pump
mobile tractor powered livestock total feed ration mixer
forestry harvesting head with bark stripping

Popular and innovative items of productivity equipment that continue to be eligible for a grant include a robotic drill and guided hoe, inter row hoes and weeders, camera guided inter row sprayers, rainwater harvesting tanks, automatic tree planter, direct drill with fertiliser placement and a robotic silage pusher.

The list of productivity items is available on GOV.UK.

Slurry

Applications for slurry items are scored on: 

improving slurry management
environmental benefit
level of adoption by the industry

There are now 17 different items of slurry equipment to help improve the collection and spreading of slurry. You can apply for a grant towards the cost of any of these items.

Following suggestions from farmers, we have widened the specification for slurry separators to allow screw press, screen press and mobile separators.

Popular items of slurry equipment that continue to be eligible for a grant include robotic slurry collectors, flow rate monitoring equipment and low emission slurry spreaders, such as dribble bars.

Applying slurry directly to the ground is a major step farmers can take to reduce ammonia emissions and improve use of slurry as an organic fertiliser.

The list of slurry items is available on GOV.UK.

Animal health and welfare

Animal health and welfare grants are available to commercial farmers who keep pigs, sheep, dairy and beef cattle and layer and broiler chickens.

There are more than 130 animal health and welfare items available in 2024, including 29 new items.

We’ve worked closely with farmers, vets, academics and industry groups to compile a list of items which improve the health and welfare of livestock, including items that respond to challenges such as heat stress and biosecurity.

Applications for animal health and welfare items are scored on their contribution towards the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway priorities. This year, you can increase your application score by 20% if you can show evidence that you’ve discussed your application with a vet.

We encourage all applicants to speak with a vet about their application. They’ll be able to help you identify specific health and welfare challenges on your farm, to inform which equipment would work best for you.

An Annual Health and Welfare Review is a great way to have this conversation. We hope that you’ll take the opportunity to have a fully funded vet visit before applying for a grant.

The list of animal health and welfare items is available on GOV.UK.