£150m Capital Grants offer returns to help farmers boost profit
- Shepherd Partnership
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
As part of the government’s Plan for Change, Defra is reopening the Capital Grants offer. This new round will make £150 million of funding available to farmers to buy equipment or services that help them make farming and environmental improvements across England.
Farmers are now able to apply for funding for a total of 78 items, including planting hedgerows for biodiversity, introducing natural flood management measures, and measures to improve water quality such as new livestock equipment.
Farmers can now also apply for four new capital items enabling farmers and land managers to assess woodland, create a wildfire checklist, repair stone walls and host educational visits.
Defra are introducing these changes to ensure access to the grants is fairer, so more farm businesses can get funding at the same time as making sure Defra can more effectively manage taxpayers’ money.
Funding limits are being introduced to four of the six groups of capital items in this Capital Grants offer. An application can include items from each of the six groups. The funding limit for four of the groups is:
£25,000 for items in each of the water quality, air quality, and natural flood management groups
£35,000 for the group including boundaries, trees and orchards items.
Farmers can apply at any time during the year. However, moving forward Defra will only allow one successful application per Single Business Identifier (SBI) in a calendar year.
Next steps for the offer
This round will also close to applications when the available funding is committed. Defra will aim to give reasonable notice of the offer closing, but this may not be possible. Funding is not guaranteed even if an application has been submitted and is eligible.
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