Earlier this month, we wrote a post introducing the Farmer Welfare Grant.
A total of £1.5 million will be available over 3 years to support farmer mental health and wellbeing across England.
The funding is intended to help rural and agricultural charities and organisations deliver practical support that strengthens both personal and business resilience across the sector.
While the application portal will not open until 6 August, we are sharing additional information in advance to help organisations considering an application. This includes details of 2 upcoming webinars.
Guidance, including the technical eligibility criteria, will be available when the portal opens.
Who can apply
Funding is only available to organisations with experience of supporting farming communities, not for individual farm businesses.
Any charitable or third-sector not-for-profit organisation registered in England can apply for funding if it can demonstrate its ability to deliver a suitable project.
For-profit organisations may also be eligible to apply as part of a consortium led by an eligible organisation, provided they can demonstrate how both the project and their role contribute to meeting the funding criteria.
We want grant recipients to develop support that responds to the specific needs of farming communities. For this reason, we are not prescribing the types of activities or approaches applicants should propose.
That said, applications that support the following priorities are particularly encouraged:
- Tackling isolation and reaching people who are less likely to access or benefit from existing support
- Promoting prevention and early intervention, helping people to build resilience before issues escalate
- Reducing stigma around mental health and seeking support
- Removing barriers to accessing personal and business resilience support
- Supporting a joined-up approach to farm safety, physical health, mental health and business resilience
- Preventing suicide and supporting those at risk
- Supporting those who work with farmers, including intermediaries and allied industries, as well as farmers' families and wider support networks
- Engaging young farmers and helping them to remain connected to strong rural communities over the long term
- Strengthening culture, local identity and social connections within farming communities
- Providing business resilience advice and support, including succession planning, change management, and leaving the industry
- Building skills, confidence and capacity in farmers and the rural community
Funding can be used to cover both one-off and ongoing costs. This may include overheads, venue hire, materials, equipment, service delivery costs, and staffing costs where these are directly related to the project.
The exact number of projects will be determined by the amount and nature of applications we receive.
We’ll consider both individual projects and joint projects involving multiple organisations.
Applications are invited for grants of between £1,000 and £200,000 per year, covering expenditure incurred between November 2026 and March 2029.
How to apply
To apply, you must do so through an application portal. We will blog again when the portal opens.
As part of the application, you'll need to:
- explain why funding is needed
- describe who will benefit from the project
- estimate how many people are expected to benefit
- explain how you will use funding effectively to make a difference
- show how the project has been designed to meet the needs of the target group
Once the application window has closed, the applications will be reviewed and scored by a team from Defra. Funding decisions will be made after all applications have been assessed.
Dates to note
Thursday 6 August – Application portal opens. Full guidance available.
Thursday 13 August – Watch our first webinar to learn more about the grant, guidance and eligibility criteria.
Monday 17 August, 10am–11am – Join our second webinar for a walkthrough of the application portal and application process. A recording will be shared in this post after the session
Wednesday 9 September, 11:59 am– Application portal closes.
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3 comments
Comment by Belinda Barnes posted on
This is a very admirable scheme. However, A return to something like
the format of the basic payment scheme would prevent a lot of mental health issues. A sympathetic ear doesn’t really help a large overdraft, the lack of rain, low marketgate prices and high costs. Food production needs some security, just like our defence which is receiving extra funding. When we cannot produce our own food and we rely on food from overseas, we are going to be in big trouble. Once farming families no longer produce food and the delicate infrastructure falls apart there will be no replacing them.
Mental health issues cannot be overlooked, but there is a good reason why as Farmer as we are suffering with them
Comment by The Team posted on
Hi Belinda,
Thank you for sharing your perspective. You've highlighted some of the very real pressures that many farmers are facing, including financial uncertainty, challenging weather conditions, fluctuating market prices and rising costs.
You're right that mental health cannot be considered in isolation from the wider issues affecting farm businesses and families. Concerns about income, the future of the business, and the ability to continue producing food can all have a significant impact on wellbeing.
While support services and initiatives can play an important role in helping people through difficult times, long-term confidence and stability are also important factors in maintaining good mental health. The Farming Roadmap acknowledges that both personal and business resilience are fundamental to the future of farming, and that farmers need clarity and confidence to plan, invest and build for the future.
Strong communities, social connection and local support networks are also well-recognised contributors to wellbeing. The roadmap repeatedly recognises that farming is central to community life, not just food production, and that thriving rural communities play an important role in supporting the people who live and work within them.
We have passed your comments on to the FWG team, as feedback like this helps inform ongoing discussions.
We appreciate you taking the time to share your views.
Best wishes,
The Team
Comment by Rob Yorke posted on
this is very welcome and important for a wide number of reasons from building trust, acknowledging grief within change, working closer with neighbours and non-farming organisations - matters often not publicly articulated across the wider rural sector and some of which are touched on in this blog from over 25 years experience of working with farmers, foresters, rangers etc https://robyorke.co.uk/2021/10/gutenberg-moment/
best wishes, Rob