Future Farming Resilience Fund extended
© Tim Scrivener Defra has extended the interim phase of the Future Farming Resilience Fund by up to six months until September 2022.
This phase of the fund, previously set to end in March, has been extended to allow the providers more time to deliver the report.
The scale-up phase, which was due to begin in April, is now expected to begin from late 2022.
See also: Future Farming Resilience Fund scale-up pushed back
The £10.7m fund was launched last year to offer free business advice to farmers to help them cope with the loss of the Basic Payment Scheme and the move to the Environmental Land Management regime. It is being delivered in a range of formats, from webinars to one-to–one consultancy visits.
In total, 19 different providers are being funded by Defra to offer free business advice to farmers across England.
Andrew Powley, team leader at Defra, said: “We appreciate that 2021’s late harvest made it difficult for farmers to apply in time and take up was slower than expected.
“So, we’ve offered all our providers an extension of up to six months, which is when the next phase of support is expected to begin.”
Revised phase dates
- Initial phase – ran from February 2020 until March 2021
- Interim phase – August 2021 until up to September 2022 (depending on provider)
- Scale-up phase – due to begin autumn 2022 and run until March 2025
New provider end dates
The end dates of the interim phase now vary between the 19 providers that are offering the advice to farmers.
- RSK Adas – no extension needed
- Niab has an end date for the initial phase of 1 March 2022
- Bury Beet Group and the Landworkers Alliance end date has been extended to 31 March 2022
- Ceres Rural, Natural Enterprise and The Prince’s Countryside Fund end date has been extended to 30 April 2022
- Adas, Berrys, Devon County Council and Promar International end date has been extended to 31 May 2022
- Brown & Co and Ricardo-AEA end date has been extended to 30 June 2022
- AHDB, DJM Consulting, JH Agri Consulting, Kite Consulting, Laurence Gould Partnership, M B Hodgson & Son and SRUC end date has been extended to 31 August 2022.
Explore more / Transition
During the series we follow our group of 16 Transition Farmers through the challenges and opportunities as they seek to improve their farm businesses.
Transition is an independent editorial initiative supported by our UK-wide network of partners, who have made it possible to bring you this series.
Visit the Transition content hub to find out more.
