Free agricultural transition advice service for farmers set to launch

The final round of Defra’s Future Farming Resilience Fund (FFRF) is due to begin in England in the autumn.

Defra will provide 17 organisations with grant funding to provide free consultancy services to farmers, following the gradual removal of the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS).

The £32m fund is expected to support up to 32,000 farm businesses and will provide enhanced advice, including more time and services.

See also: Future Farm Resilience Fund: How farms are using free advice

The final round of funding is due to run from October 2022 until March 2025, following the closure of the interim stage of the scheme in August.

Earlier phases of the scheme have seen 6,600 farming enterprises receive free business advice. The final phase funding of £32m is triple the £10.7m of the interim phase.

Andrew Powley, team leader at Defra, said: “Any farmer or land manager who receives BPS in England is eligible for free business advice during the early years of the agricultural transition.

“The Future Farming Resilience Fund awards grants to organisations. These organisations then provide free business advice. They work with farmers and land managers to understand how the changes to farming will affect their businesses and help them to plan for the future.”

The different types of advice on offer will vary between providers; ranging from farm visits and consultations to full recommendation reports and help with grant applications.

What’s on offer

Yorkshire-based GSC Grays will be one of the providers for the final round of the scheme.

The firm will be offering support across all sectors in the north of England.

Guy Coggrave, managing director at GSC Grays, said: “We are looking at offering a more engaged longer-term approach to each business.

“What we found from the initial phase was there is quite a significant amount of farming businesses that really needed support in a more bespoke way to suit their business’s requirements rather than a fixed model.”

As well as bespoke advice such as consultancy visits, the firm will be running workshops with groups of farmers that can work together and learn from each other.

Ceres Rural has secured funding for the final stage. So far, the consultancy firm has provided support to more than 400 businesses through the earlier stages of the scheme.

Tim Isaac, project director at Ceres Rural said: “Given recent world events, there is now even more for farm businesses to contend with since the last stage of the fund, with inflationary pressures and increased market volatility adding to their concerns.”

The firm will be offering three different packages of advice to suit different business requirements. These could cover a range of support offerings such as carbon audits, benchmarking, farm resilience reports and tailored business plans.

“Even if they have previously taken advantage of the fund, they can apply again for a different offer or service including a follow-up business review,” says Mr Isaac.