£30m grant scheme for new kit to reopen in 2019
© Tim Scrivener A £30m government grant scheme that provides funding for purchases of new, smaller items of machinery and equipment will reopen in 2019, Defra has announced.
The Countryside Productivity Small Grants Scheme (CPSGS) was created to help farmers invest in new equipment that will help improve efficiency.
In the first round, which opened in February this year, farmers claimed a total of £15m worth of funding, according to Defra.
See also: New £60m small grants scheme – all you need to know
Funding provided was between £3,000 to £12,000 to cover up to 40% of the purchase price of new equipment from a prescribed list worth between £12,000-£30,000.
Eligible kit included items specific to cattle, sheep and pig farmers, as well as precision farming and resource management equipment for arable farmers.
Following industry feedback, new items have been added to the list for the second round, including fruit ripeness spectrometers and nitrogen-measuring devices for calculating fertiliser application for crops.
What type of equipment is covered?
- Livestock equipment Handling systems, crushes, calving detectors, weighing equipment, calf feeders, EID devices, pasture plate meters and electric scraper systems.
- Arable equipment Precision-farming equipment – including GPS units, yield mapping devices, variable-rate controllers and direct or strip till drills.
The small grant funding is available alongside the Countryside Productivity Large Grants Scheme, which have a combined budget of £141m.
Both schemes sit within a £200m Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) package, announced in July 2017.
Further details will be published in early 2019 when the next round of funding opens for applications.