The newly launched ADOPT programme from Defra and Innovate UK presents a major opportunity for UK agriculture to embed innovation directly into the hands of farmers. As a new funding stream designed specifically to support on-farm testing and demonstration, ADOPT aligns perfectly with the mission of the Agronomy Research Circle: to understand what works on-farm through Explanations, Evidence, Experimentation, and Exchange.

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.

Projects of between £50,000 to £100,000 over 12–24 months can support groups of farmers and researchers to test products, technologies or practices in a practical farm setting. Crucially, this isn’t about blue-sky research — it’s about real farmers testing what might work in their fields, their systems, and their contexts.

More details are available at:

• Farming Innovation UKRI

• FARM-PEP ADOPT Portal

Why This Matters

In the UK and globally, there's growing recognition that innovation must work at farm level to be meaningful. Farmers are experimenters by nature, but they often lack the time, support, or networks to formalise trials, analyse results, or share insights. ADOPT offers funding and a framework to change that.

For those of us working to support on-farm research — whether as consultants, researchers, or innovative growers — this is a unique opportunity to:

• Put farmers in the driving seat of innovation.

• Generate robust, locally relevant evidence on emerging practices.

• Build peer-to-peer learning networks to share findings across the sector.

How ARC Can Help

Through the Agronomy Research Circle we can connect you with the people, organisations, networks, tools and networks to make your project a success. If you are interested in getting involved we can help with:

• Applications for Facilitator support of £2500 from Defra for us to help write a full proposal for funding

• As a sub-contractor in projects to 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. 

• Where the project focus is of mutual interest we can join projects as a research partner, co-designing the projects questions and activities, on-boarding farmers and relevant partners, ensuring maximum success in generating knowledge and impact. In particular we are looking to pull together farmer groups to address:

  • Nutrient Perfomance - testing technologies, practices and products for improved crop nutrition.

  • Biostimulants for enhanced crop peformance - which products work in which situations?
    
    
  • #OSRReboot - trialling the adoption of practices for successful oilseed rape crops in the face of pressures from dry seed beds, slugs, cabbage stem flea beetle and pigeons.

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.

Get Involved

The first round of ADOPT is now open, with applications due by 19 June 2025. If you have an idea you'd like to explore or are looking for collaborators, now’s the time to act.  

Let’s seize this opportunity to make on-farm innovation truly farmer-led. We'll use the Connections Hub on FarmPEP to develop our ideas and build consortia - Have a look and put your ideas on line now.

👉 Contact us if you’d like to discuss a project idea or partnership.