Technology is playing an increasingly important role in helping businesses innovate and adapt to these challenges, whether from precision livestock management and data-driven decision making to robotics, regenerative farming techniques and carbon-focused farming systems.
Farm businesses are operating in an increasingly complex environment, facing pressures from rising costs, labour availability, climate change, market volatility and evolving agricultural policy.
While many farmers have ideas that could improve business performance, they often lack the time, confidence or financial resources to test them in practice. The Accelerating Development of Practices and Technologies (ADOPT) Fund is Defra’s response to this challenge.
Introduced in England in December 2025, ADOPT is designed to support the ‘next wave’ of farmer-led innovation by funding projects trialling new technologies and practices. The latest round of funding opened for applications in August with a deadline of 7 October. This time, the maximum project size has been doubled from £100,000 to £200,000, which allows for larger and more ambitious projects.
What is ADOPT?
ADOPT supports collaborative projects led by farmers, growers and foresters in England that seek to address current challenges affecting their businesses. Rather than focussing on laboratory research, the fund is intended to demonstrate how innovative technologies, systems or practices perform under commercial farming conditions.
Projects must demonstrate the potential to improve one or more of the following:
- Productivity and profitability
- Business resilience
- Environmental sustainability
- Progress towards net zero farming ambitions
Successful projects are expected to generate practical evidence that can be shared with the wider farming sector, helping to build confidence in the adoption of innovative approaches.
Is my project eligible?
ADOPT is intended to support projects that:
- Test innovative technologies, systems or practices under commercial farming conditions.
- Improve productivity, profitability, resilience or environmental outcomes.
- Generate evidence to support business decision-making.
- Address challenges with relevance to the wider farming sector.
- Demonstrate and share results to encourage wider adoption.
Navigating innovation funding can be challenging, particularly where projects involve multiple partners, technical specialists and reporting requirements.
For more information on the ADOPT Fund or to discuss a potential project, please contact Jack Munro or Helen Newbrook.
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