Tips for securing a share of the latest FETF grants pot

Farmers in England can apply for grants equivalent to about 40% of the cost of items through the second round of the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF).

The aim of this support is to help increase agricultural productivity, contribute to improving animal health and welfare, encourage sustainable use of pesticides and fertiliser and improve air and water quality.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and unsustainable use of abstracted water is also a priority, as is encouraging sustainable woodland management.
There are two strands or themes to the grant:

• Productivity and Slurry – for items or technology that improve agricultural sustainability and horticultural and forestry productivity, helping to reduce inputs and emissions and cut waste. An initial £17m is available in this strand.
• Animal Health and Welfare – items that bolster livestock health and welfare, potentially helping improve biosecurity or reducing environmental stress. This part of the scheme has initially been allocated £20m.

See also: Advice on 2023 BPS claims as delinked payments near

Each item has a score assigned to it based on Defra’s assessment of how well it meets the objectives of the scheme. If it is oversubscribed, funding will be allocated first to items with the highest score.

Application process

Each grant has a separate online portal through which applicants need to answer questions about the types of grants they are applying for.

Once they have been told they are successful, farmers can buy the item(s). These must be paid for in full, and reimbursement is claimed using the receipt.

Consultant advice

These are very useful grants, advisers say, but make sure the items are really needed as the non-grant element still has to be funded.

Helen Proud of youngsRPS, Hexham, warns: “You’ve got to be very careful that items meet the criteria. This is based on experience in round one, when some farmers fell foul of this and, having paid for their kit, could not get reimbursement from the scheme after the [Rural Payments Agency] inspected it.”

It is expected that applicants will be able to get prior approval from the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) that their proposed investment meets the criteria.

Ms Proud also points out that the scheme is competitive, so there is no guarantee of a positive outcome. “Successful applicants should purchase the items as soon as possible, as in the past a shortage of some items has meant funding has been retracted.”

Lowering the minimum grant to £1,000 is a positive, say advisers. Some useful smaller items such as cow mattresses and calf coats have been added to the list of eligible items, says Charlie Davies of Kelly Farm Consulting, while the addition of more large fans is helpful.

Henry Clemons of Knight Frank’s rural consultancy team points out the wide-ranging nature of eligible items. While most of the funding is for production-related kit such as direct drills, slurry spreaders, pasture plate meters and calving detectors, there are items that are not farming-specific that will be of interest to rural businesses.

“For example, there are significant grants for forestry equipment, including £24,467 towards a small self-propelled forwarder or £11,000 towards a tree shear to fell trees,” says Mr Clemons.

“For horticulture and viticulture, examples include a £11,940 grant for mobile vertical frost fans and £2,400 for a tractor-mounted flail mulcher.

“If you want to improve your water management, there is £3,336 towards a rainwater harvesting tank over 50,000 litres or £478 for irrigation sensors. And interestingly, there is also £275 funding towards cameras for monitoring farmyards.”

Application and claims advice

• Check your Rural Payment Online details, including permissions.
• Applicants must be registered with the RPA’s Rural Payments service and have a Single Business Identifier (SBI) number.
• Application details must match exactly the applicant’s records on the Rural Payments service – if not, the RPA will contact applicants by email and ask for changes to be made and for applications to be resubmitted.
• Before applying, check that items will be compatible with existing systems and have suitable IT connectivity.

Mistakes and amendments

If an applicant makes a mistake or wants to add more items before the deadline, a new application must be made, re-entering all the items they want to apply for.

If more than one application with the same SBI number is submitted, the RPA will only consider the most recent application in each round.

The RPA will email a Grant Funding Agreement (GFA) for each successful application, which must be accepted online by the deadline.

Once the GFA offer has been accepted, all items in an agreement must be bought before the end of the claim window unless there are exceptional circumstances and RPA agrees in advance, in writing.

Once items have been paid for, installed, and are in use according to the scheme rules, a single claim for payment should be submitted.

Check required documents

Check the guidance carefully for what needs to be submitted, including evidence such as invoices, payment evidence or photos, and in what form it is needed.

Grant funded items must be kept at the GFA offer location, be operational and in good repair for five years from the date a claim is paid. They must also be recorded on the business asset register for five years from this date.

Documents including invoices, receipts and bank statements should be kept for seven years.