The UK government has announced a £20 million funding round for growers and agri-tech companies developing field robots capable of planting, tending, and harvesting crops. The funding, announced by farming minister Stephen Morgan, is part of the Farming Innovation Programme and is specifically designed to fast-track technology that can ease seasonal worker shortages on British farms. Applications are open through the Innovation Funding Service and are eligible from a broader pool of sectors than the programme’s previous 2023 round.
The round is part of a government commitment to invest at least £200 million in farming innovation by 2030, with the Farming Innovation Programme having been boosted by an additional £53 million earlier this year by Defra secretary Emma Reynolds.
The Labor Shortage Driver
Seasonal worker availability has become a structural constraint for UK agriculture, particularly in fruit and vegetable production where hand-picking remains the dominant harvest method. Field robots that can reliably execute planting, monitoring, and harvesting tasks offer a path to reducing that dependency, though the technical challenge of operating in unstructured outdoor environments with variable crop conditions has historically limited deployment at commercial scale.
The Fieldwork Robotics raspberry-picking robot is cited as one of the current pilots the new round builds on. The company has been using government funding to improve the durability and reliability of its picking system ahead of a full commercial rollout – a development trajectory that illustrates both the progress being made and the engineering challenges that remain between demonstration and consistent field performance.
“Robotics and automation are becoming increasingly important tools to help farmers improve productivity and build more resilient businesses,” said Chris Danks, Head of Agrifood at Innovate UK, which is delivering the programme in partnership with the government. “This competition will help accelerate innovations from concept to on-farm application, supporting solutions that can improve productivity, sustainability and resilience across the sector.”
Expanded Eligibility
The new round expands eligibility beyond the 2023 programme to include ornamental plant propagation, growing, and monitoring sectors, as well as forestry projects, tree nursery and planting operations, and woodland monitoring and management systems. The broader scope reflects recognition that the labor shortage problem in UK agriculture extends beyond food crop production into the full range of land management activities where seasonal and skilled worker availability is limiting.
“This funding will help put cutting-edge robots and technology into their hands, easing that burden while boosting yields and profits,” said farming minister Morgan. “It’s a vote of confidence in British ingenuity, and a big step towards the kind of modern, resilient farming we set out in our Farming Roadmap.”
The UK agricultural robotics funding round follows similar national investment programs in the Netherlands, where Wageningen University has long led precision agriculture robotics research, and in Japan, where government subsidies have supported rice-farming robot deployment at commercial scale. The £20 million round positions the UK as a participant in a global competition to automate food production that is accelerating as demographic pressures on seasonal labor intensify across developed economies.
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