Value Added Grant – First stage of the application process is now open.

The online checker is now open for you to apply for the Adding Value Grant.

The Value Added Grant is a £30 million fund which offers grants focused on supporting farmers and growers to process, diversify and add value to their eligible agricultural products after they are harvested or reared. 

It offers grants of between £25,000 and £300,000 for up to 40% of eligible project costs.

Eligible agricultural products include:

• arable and horticultural crops (including food and non-food crops)
• livestock products (including dairy, meat, skins and hides)
• non-food crops (including fodder, fibres and flowers)

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) will prioritise funding for projects that:

• increase, improve or introduce new processing capabilities
• grow your business - to improve business resilience
• process products for the first time
• shorten supply chains
• encourage collaboration and partnerships
• improve environmental sustainability

What kind of projects will be funded?

Processing agricultural products e.g:

• potatoes to crisps
• milk to cheese
• wool to yarn

 Adding value to agricultural products, e.g:

• washing
• sorting
• grading
• topping and tailing
• dicing or cutting
• bottling
• packing
• second-stage grain processing (for example, colour sorting, blending)

Retailing:

• buildings for retail sales
• display and retail equipment, for example, cabinets and tills
• automatic vending machines, for example milk vendors

These are a lower priority as they are not directly adding value to an agricultural product and will score lower than higher priority items.

Projects providing wider benefits

RPA is also looking for projects to provide wider benefits to:

• other businesses, including new collaborations or partnerships
• the environment

Environmental benefits could include:

• using renewable energy
• increased energy efficiency
• introducing savings in energy or water usage, or in waste management
• increasing use of sustainable packaging
• reducing harmful emissions, or pollutants

Who can apply?

You can apply for a grant if you’re a:

• grower or other producer of agricultural products (by which we mean you carry on an agricultural or horticultural activity, including rearing livestock)
• business processing agricultural or horticultural products which is at least 50% owned by agricultural or horticultural producers

The grant funded assets must be located in England. The Adding Value (AV) grant does not apply to any joint business or partnership based in Northern Ireland.

Where a grant funded asset is mobile, the same requirement applies to the location where the mobile asset is stored or kept when not in use.

The land on which the grant-funded asset is installed or built must either:

• be owned by the applicant business
• have a tenancy agreement between the applicant business and the landowner in place until 5 years after the project has been completed

You can process any eligible agricultural products and do not have to grow or rear them yourself. For example, a sheep farmer can apply for funding for a distillery, if they wish to diversify.

What the grant can pay for?

If you’re eligible, you can get an AV grant to pay for capital items to enable you to add value to eligible agricultural products, after they’ve been harvested or reared.

Eligible capital items include:

• equipment for preparing or processing edible agricultural products for added value sales
• equipment for ‘second stage’ processing of grain - for example, colour sorting, blending
• equipment for processing non-edible agricultural products into new products (for example, flax, hemp, wool, hides, and skins)
• equipment for retailing eligible agricultural products (for example, vending machines or display facilities)
• premises for the preparation or processing of added value agricultural products, including associated integral storage areas

Stand-alone storage projects are not eligible for the AV grant. Only costs for integral storage areas (for example, for goods inward/outward) as part of wider processing projects are eligible, and these costs must not be more than 50% of the value of the grant.

This means that any applications involving building works that include storage areas must clearly separate out and detail the costs of the storage area works to make sure the 50% criteria is met.

Other eligible costs

• Installation and commissioning of eligible capital items.
• Alterations to the electrical supply to accommodate the installation of new equipment. For example, additional wiring from the distribution board.
• Upgrade of electricity supply. The eligible cost must be related to the project that will be undertaken. For example, if the project requires an additional 100 Kw of electrical supply and the new supply is 200 Kw, only half of the cost will be eligible. You will need to provide detailed evidence of the power requirement of the project in your full application.
• One-off capital costs towards the development of an e-commerce platform directly linked to the project. For example, this could be capital costs to build, design and develop a promotion website, as long as this does not add up to more than 10% of the project’s total eligible costs. This cost is eligible as long as it is used for the promotion and sale of products linked within the project.

Only the one-off costs towards the creation of the appropriate e-commerce platform will be eligible. Any other costs, such as hosting charges, annual fees, licences are ineligible.

How the grant works

The grant is competitive, so RPA will score your application against the funding priorities. RPA will award a grant to the strongest applications.

You’ll need to follow a 2-stage application process:

Stage 1: To check if you’re eligible and how well your project fits the funding priorities using an online checker - your ‘online application’.

Stage 2: If you’re eligible and your project scores well enough against the funding priorities, you’ll get an application form and project number to make a ‘full application’.

If your full application is eligible, and scores highly enough, RPA will offer you a grant.

The grant opened for applications on 9 June 2022 and closes at midnight on 21 July 2022.

If you have any questions about the Value Added Grant or would like some advice or assistance with the application process please do not hesitate to contact us.