Agriculture: Lancashire
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support innovation in agri-science to improve farming (a) productivity and (b) sustainability in (i) Fylde constituency and (b) Lancashire.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner
Since 2021, the Farming Innovation Programme (FIP) has been Defra’s flagship programme for supporting research and innovation in farming in England to help farmers, growers and foresters increase productivity, sustainability and resilience. In February the Secretary of State announced a further £63 million for new competitions starting in 2025/6.
Competitions currently open include low emissions farming and precision breeding with up to £12.5 million across each; the Accelerating Development of Practices and Technologies fund with £20.6 million across 2025/6 which provides farmer-led, smaller-scale innovation grants and supports trialling new technology and methods on farms; and a £5 million Investor Partnerships programme which will blend government grant money with private investment to bring cutting edge technology to market, giving farmers and food producers faster and more widespread access to state-of-the-art innovations.
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