From climate-smart hemp to vitamin-rich tomatoes, £21.5 million is being invested by Defra to help UK farms reduce emissions, improve productivity and turn research into tools that can be used on the ground.
The funding will support 15 innovation projects across England as part of Defra’s agricultural innovation programme, delivered in conjunction with Innovate UK, supporting farmers in sectors ranging from dairy and arable land to horticulture and marginal land use.
The project aims to move new ideas from the laboratory to everyday agricultural practice, with a focus on reducing emissions, increasing resilience to extreme weather events and creating new income opportunities.
Among the projects being supported is Sunshine Tomato, which uses precision breeding to develop tomatoes rich in provitamin D3, which is based on early field trials to improve nutrition and help address vitamin D deficiency.
Another project will focus on low-emission fertilizers for dairy farming, replacing 50% of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers with biological replacement fertilizers to reduce nitrous oxide emissions and improve soil health.
Climate-resilient industrial hemp is also being developed, with new high-value varieties designed to better cope with changing weather conditions and bring potential income from less productive land.
Agriculture Minister Dame Angela Eagle said innovation was key to achieving a more sustainable and competitive sector.
“Innovation is at the heart of a more productive and resilient agricultural sector,” she said.
“This funding will support new ideas that farmers can use in the field to reduce methane and fertilizer-related emissions, strengthen crop resilience and improve nutrition.”
She added: “This is part of our transformation plan to support rural growth and long-term food security.”
Innovate UK said the funding will help accelerate the uptake of new technology on farms and across the supply chain.
“Working with Defra, Innovate UK is enabling precision breeding and low-emission technologies to move quickly from research to real-world use,” said managing director Dr Stella Peace.
She said this would enable farmers and agribusinesses to “grow, compete and unlock new economic opportunities across the UK’s food and farming sector”.
The £21.5m package forms part of the Government’s wider commitment to invest at least £200m in agricultural innovation by 2030, focusing on practical solutions to support agribusiness and food security.
This builds on around £2.3m awarded to 30 projects announced in December through the first round of the ADOPT Fund, with new ideas such as low-emission machinery and digital farm management tools already being tested on farms in operation.
Defra said the latest projects focused on precision breeding and low-emission farming and were selected through two competitions launched in April 2025.
Many of the plans will now move into further testing and development with the aim of bringing new crops, inputs and technologies closer to commercial use and wider adoption on farms.
