Farmers and growers can bid for government grants of up to £500,000 (US$782,800) to help improve their competitiveness under a new scheme.

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After consulting on the details of the scheme, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is now inviting applications for grants under the Agriculture Development Scheme (ADS).


Previous rounds of ADS have ploughed £7m into agriculture and horticulture.


Priority will be given to projects addressing some of issues identified by Sir Don Curry’s Policy Commission on Food and Farming, namely, assurance schemes, cooperation and collaboration benefiting primary producers, benchmarking, and spread of best practice.


Defra will also support initiatives with potential to open up new markets, such as raw materials for industry.

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Lord Whitty, food and farming minister, said: “This scheme should be of real value to agriculture and horticulture businesses. There is a lot of good practice out there and we want to help spread that and to improve the competitiveness of the industry as a whole.”

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