Farming Equipment & Technology Fund (FETF) 2026 in England

Ann Gibson
5 days ago
2 min read

The Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Emma Reynolds, announced in her speech at the NFU Conference the welcome return of the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) 2026, with a dedicated budget of £50m. FETF 2026 will re-open for applications on 17th March and will be available to all eligible farmers, growers, forestry owners and contractors in England (those registered with the RPA with an Single Business Identifier (SBI) number.)

💡 This announcement was accompanied by detail of the SFI 2026 offer - read more here.

Within FETF, you can only submit one application for each theme, each between £1,000 to £25,000. The themes are:

Improving productivity – paying either 40% or 50% towards 70 items that benefit both productivity and the environment, such as air drills for establishing cover crops, weed wipers for herbicide applications, weather stations, or forestry harvesting equipment.
Managing slurry – paying 50% to aid with improving management of slurry and bringing environmental benefit on items such as slurry testing kits or separating equipment.
Improving animal health and welfare - paying a grant of 50% towards over 100 items of equipment that will help and support welfare such as livestock handling systems, ventilation or electronic tag readers.

All equipment must meet the minimum specifications given under the guidance and must be either new or ex-display. For example, home-built, second-hand and part-exchange equipment will not be funded.

The FETF is a competitive grant with each application being scored as to its merit, meaning not all applications will receive funding.

FETF 2026 application deadline

The grant application window will close midday on 28^th April 2026.

What are the key changes from last year’s FETF?

Some items have been added or removed (see full lists below)
Scoring uplifts (e.g. evidence of vet advice, new entrants) have been removed
Your correspondence address will be one registered with the Rural Payments Service, option to have a separate address has been removed
All sensitive information (e.g. personal data on bank statements sent with claims) has to be removed before sending document to the RPA

2026 will be the final standalone round of FETF in its current format. Defra intend to bring together the strongest elements of grant schemes from 2027 to simplify the application process and target funding more effectively.

What items can I apply for under each FETF theme?

FETF supports over 290 items in total:

Full list of productivity theme items (70 in total)
Full list of slurry theme items (17 in total)
Full list of Animal Health and Welfare theme items (over 100 in total)

Need help with your application?

Here at Oakbank, we can help with any queries you may have about FETF and/or any other grant application. If you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to get in contact.