A new fund has opened to support farmers to increase productivity and sustainability.

The Farming Innovation Programme has £17.5million available for the first round of its three funds.

The programme aims to support projects to transform productivity and enhance environmental sustainability in agriculture.

This first fund opened on October 20 is the ‘Industry-led R&D Partnerships Fund’, where farmers can bid for funding to develop new technologies and practices to help them overcome challenges and use new opportunities such as artificial intelligence and low-emission machineries to optimise the production process, as well as the development of climate-resilient crops.

Early next year, Defra will launch the ‘Farming Futures R&D Fund’, for strategic projects aimed at tackling climate change by reducing the environmental impact of farming.

The third of the funds, called ‘Projects to Accelerate Adoption Fund’, will launch later in 2022 to support farmer-led projects to trial the viability of new innovations on farm.

Defra has also announced the new projects that have won a share of the £14.5million Farming Innovation Pathways funding.

The awarded projects will contribute to helping businesses and researchers transform food production, meet the growing demand for British food, and help the sector to move towards net zero emissions. Winning applicants are now able to develop their ideas, which include:

• A fruit-scouting robot that monitors the growth-stages of crops, up to determining fruit ripeness, size and optimal picking time, to allow farmers to maximise production and yields.

• A model to use soldier flies to create a low-cost, protein-rich animal feed from farm waste, enabling farmers to recover value from otherwise unusable waste. This also promotes circular farming practices in which resources are turned into new products at the end of their life.

• A new approach to protect vegetable seeds against parasites and pathogens without the use of pesticides. This would help farmers improve vegetables germination, growth and yield through a combination of techniques such as laser treatment and natural disinfectants.

• A fruit and vegetable growing method which harnesses natural daylight to boost the nutritional and flavour characteristics of crops. This would enhance the sustainability, productivity and competitiveness of domestic fruit and vegetable growing, compared to conventional glasshouse production. It will also extend the production season and remove the need for pesticides in production.

Further information on Defra’s new funds is available at farminginnovation.ukri.org.