Farming Talk: Improvement scheme grant now on offer

Farmers and landowners are being urged to apply for grants under the second round of the Farming and Forestry Improvement Scheme, which runs until July 17, helping farm businesses to improve their competitiveness.

The scheme, which was launched by the Rural Development Programme for England, is aimed at helping farmers, foresters, farming contractors, woodland owners and horticultural businesses across England.

The grants rates start at 15 per cent and go up to 40 per cent of the total project cost with a maximum available grant of £25,000 per farm business.

Applicants must consider how the FFIS might improve their farming businesses, as unlike some previous schemes the FFIS directly targets items that are normally very hard to justify expenditure on and in the current economic climate we would advise exploring every possible avenue if it means you might derive some benefit.

Defra launched the FFIS round two just a few weeks after the Rural Economy Grant closed.

That allowed farmers to apply for grants of up to £1 million to help secure the transformation of their businesses. By the April 30 deadline, Defra had received hundreds of applications from throughout England, with the total grant value requested well in excess of the budget of £60 million.

The highest number and value of applications were for farm competitiveness and agri-food projects (ahead of tourism, forestry and micro-enterprise support). As with the REG, the funding for the FFIS grant schemes comes from the second ‘pillar’ of the EU agricultural budget which is currently being reviewed as part of the larger CAP reform.

Following the popularity of the REG, we see the uptake of this scheme to be significant in how much future funding is made available by Defra and for businesses looking to invest for the future we would encourage applicants to consider this scheme because if all the available funds are allocated under round two, there might not be a round three.

Grants will be given for investments that meet one or more of the following objectives:

• Reduce energy use.
• Improve the management of manures and farm nutrients.
• Improve animal health and welfare.
• Improve use of forestry resources.
• Improve water resource management.

It is recommended that anybody wishing to apply for these grants begins doing so now to meet the July 17 deadline and to avoid any potential disappointment.

Nick Ainscough is a rural surveyor at Fisher German