Facilitator Support
Applications for Grants of £2500 from Defra for us to help write a full proposal for funding
Funding for on-farm trials
ARC can help you access ADOPT funding to carry out on-farm trials
What is ADOPT?
ADOPT (Accelerating Development of Practices and Technologies) is part of Defra's Farming Innovation Programme aiming to bridge the gap between research and real-world farming. It funds farmer-led projects that test, adapt, and share knowledge about innovative practices or technologies, helping to speed up adoption across the industry.
Launched in 2025, it now provides grants of £50k–£200k to support farmers in England conducting on farm trials. The upper limit was increased from £100k to £200k in June 2026 following a successful first year of the porgramme. ADOPT also offers £2,500 facilitator support grants to help farmers at the start of the process to bring in the expertise they need to develop a full proposal.
Where does ARC fit in?
Whether you're testing a novel input, a precision tool, a new crop type, or a management approach — we can help make it rigorous, relevant, and replicable. ARC support farmers and ag-tech companies with various aspects of ADOPT funded work including:
Sub-Contractor
ARC can provide co-ordination and support with establishing and monitoring of on-farm comparison trials, measurement protocols, data sharing and analysis. Costs will depend on the project and level of support needed, but likely to start at £5000.
Research Partner
If the project is of mutual interest, we can join as a research partner. We can co-design the project questions and activties, onboard collaborators and support knowledge exchange.
ARC's research interests
We are keen to work as research partners on projects that investigate:
- Nutrient Performance – testing technologies, practices and products for improved crop nutrition.
- Biostimulants for enhanced crop peformance – which products work in which situations.
- Disease detection – testing a range of new technologies to get better in season information on disease pressure to make better fungicide decisions.
Contact ARC
Initial idea
If you have a research idea on farm, become an ARC Innovator and book a 30 minute initial discussion about developing your idea into a facilitator support grant.
Submit Facilitator Support Grant Application
Facilitator Support Grant
ARC helps you write a facilitator support grant application based on your initial idea. This grant provides you with £2500 to pay ARC to turn your idea into a full research proposal.
Grant Approval
95%+ Success Rate
ARC has a track record of successful applications and will support resubmission if required.
Write Full Proposal
Identify Farmer and Ag-tech Collaborators
ADOPT is about collaboration. a full proposal needs to include other farmers and potentially an ag-tech company brining new technology onto farm.
Submit Full Proposal
Unlock upto £200k in funding
The full proposal can support a maximum of £200,000 of collaborative on farm research. ARC has experience of writing strong proposals with detailed schemes of work that deliver results.
Approved
Grant Offer Letter
This confirms that ADOPT funding is available for your project.
Project Starts
Collaborative Research Begins
ARC can help share results from your project and will oftern work as a contractor on various aspects of the research.
Join Today
Farmer members get 90 days free membership (full price £50/year) including a 30 minute call with one of the ARC team to discuss your trial ideas.
Frequently Asked Questions about ADOPT
ADOPT funding is for farmers. Project lead farmers must be based in England but farmer collaborators can be from other parts of the UK. Contractors and ag-tech partners can be based anywhere.
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate schemes for farmers looking to lead on-farm trial proejcts.
Knowledge exchange and sharing results is a key requirement of ADOPT funding. Participants need to be open about the results of their trials. Time spent on knowledge exchange can be included in the project costs.
Farmers are responsible for paying contractors working on the project. Farmers are paid quarterly in arrears once the work has been completed. They are eligible for 80% of their costs upto £200,000 to be supported by the grant.
Crucially, farmers time to work on the project and share knowledge can be included in the project costs, effectively you get paid to ask and answer questions to improve how you farm.
Facilitator support grants are paid to the farmer so they can in turn pay to bring in external expertise to develop the full project proposal.
As long as work is completed inline with the project proposal, grant payments are not dependent on success. Inconclusive findings can be just as valuable as clear results. We make sure all results are shared as widely as possible so that people investigating similar topics can take them into account.
Yes, you can participate in more than one ADOPT project at the same time.
No, the funding is for farmer-led research, so ultimately it's up to the farmer who is involved in the project.
There are other organisations providing support for grant applications and project management, and farmers can also work on it independently.
We believe being part of ARC adds value to your idea as we can use our experience and network to create a very strong project. The first step is to join ARC Innovators and schedule an initial conversation.
ADOPT can work for ag-tech companies wanting to prove themselves on farm
ADOPT is a great opportunity to test new pieces of technology, software or crop treatments on-farm.
ADOPT funded projects have to be farmer led but ARC can hep you find farmers keen to test new ideas. Join ARC Innovators and schedule a call to discuss what options you have available.
Join
Become and ARC Innovator ag-tech partner
Gain access to a network of forward-thinking farmers
Share
Outline your idea
We regularly update our members on research opportunities
Proposal
Develop project
Work with interested farmers to develop the project plan and grant application.
Want to know more?
Go ARC Innovators, our members only site, the gateway to starting on-farm trials.
New members can speak to someone from ARC about their project idea whether you are a farmer, researcher or ag-tech company. If you have something you want to test on-farm, take the first step by joining today.