Agriculture: Investment

(asked on 9th June 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans his Department has to financially incentivise investment in British agriculture.


Answered by
Victoria Prentis Portrait
Victoria Prentis
Attorney General
This question was answered on 17th June 2022

There is a huge opportunity for UK agriculture to improve its competitiveness developing the next generation of food and farming technology, adopting the latest techniques and investing in skills and equipment. To support this, we opened the Farming Investment Fund in November 2021. This provides grants toward a proportion of the total cost of the investment allowing farmers, foresters and growers (including related contractors) to invest in the equipment, technology and infrastructure that will help their businesses to prosper, while improving their productivity and enhancing the environment. Support is available to support smaller and larger investments.

In partnership with UK Research and Innovation, Defra has run a Farming Innovation Pathways fund and launched the £270 million Farming Innovation Programme to stimulate innovation, attract investment in R&D, and provide a boost to sustainable productivity in agriculture and horticulture. These funding programmes will enable agri-businesses to work in partnership with our world-leading research organisations to carry out research and development on innovative farming techniques.

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