The Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) 2026 will be open for applications on March 17, 2026, with some changes in place for this year’s funding round.

The FETF 2026 includes three grants to help businesses and farmers buy items to:

  • Improve productivity;
  • Manage slurry;
  • Improve animal health and welfare

Applicants can apply for more than one grant for items that suit your business.

The FETF 2026 is a competitive fund, which means applicants may not receive any, or all, of the funding applied for.

Applicants can apply for each of the three FETF 2026 grants themes. However, only one application can be submitted for each theme and each application must be for between £1,000 and £25,000.

Key changes for FETF 2026

It will use the contact details that you register in the Rural Payments service to contact you, the option to use a separate correspondence address is no longer available.

All bank statements that you send with claims must now be redacted to protect your personal data. You must remove all sensitive information form any evidence you send to the Rural Payment Agency (RPA).

In addition, the Productivity and Slurry scoring and Animal Health and Welfare scoring uplifts have been removed.

Applicants should not that Grant Funding Agreements will be sent from a different RPA email address for FETF 2026, which is ‘[email protected]’.

The RPA will send them to the email address that is linked to your Single Business Identifier (SBI) and will also send a copy to your Customer Reference Number (CRN) email address.

Eligibility

Applicants can apply for a grant if your business is based and registered in England and you are a:

  • Farmer;
  • Horticulturalist;
  • Forestry owner;
  • Contractor carrying out services to farmers, horticulturalists or forestry owners.

You are eligible to apply if you’ve received money from previous FETF grants or the Countryside Productivity Small Grants Scheme. 

The FETF Animal Health and Welfare grant is only available if you farm any of the following:   

  • Beef cattle;
  • Dairy cattle;
  • Sheep;
  • Pigs;
  • Laying chickens (including rearing and breeding farms);
  • Broiler chickens (including rearing and breeding farms).

Other types of livestock and poultry, including goats, ducks, turkeys, geese and gamebirds, are not eligible for funding.

Government departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies cannot apply for a FETF 2026 grant.

More information can be obtained from the Rural Payments Agency.

FETF 2026 FUNDING