Farmers can now apply for a share of £25 million for high tech machinery

Farmers and growers in England can now apply for up to £500,000 in Government funding to invest in cutting edge robotics and technology to boost food production and farm and horticulture productivity.

Grants ranging from £35,000 up to £500,000 are available to invest in productivity-boosting equipment such as driverless tractors, robots that harvest, spray crops and weed, and automated milking systems. The application window for the Improving Farm Productivity theme of the Farming Investment Fund has opened today.

The new theme, worth £25 million in total, is the latest installment of the Farming Investment Fund – an umbrella fund which opened in November and is designed to further increase productivity on farms.