With DEFRA’s Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026’s Window 1 funding closing today and the opening of the 2nd window in September, farmers across the UK are having to focus on yet more paperwork, whilst struggling to cope with one of the most challenging summers ever.
The scheme pays farmers in England to implement environmentally friendly land practices alongside sustainable food production. But the application process involves a mountain of paperwork and can be time-consuming for farmers who need to be out on their land managing the impact of this summer’s heat and drought.
So, many farmers are now choosing to embrace high tech platforms to help them through the process. A number of these new tech start-ups – some founded by farmers themselves – have been supported by Ordnance Survey’s award-winning Geovation Accelerator Programme (GAP) to boost innovation in land use.
Until now, the GAP has been an Ordnance Survey (OS) initiative in association with HM Land Registry (HMLR) and helps founders of tech start-ups to apply trusted location, land and environmental data to some of the countryside’s most pressing challenges. Now DEFRA has teamed up with OS to support more innovative tech start-ups and to boost innovation in land use.
DEFRA will be funding three successful startups in Geovation’s next cohort in the autumn, with the intention of encouraging innovative solutions to challenges in land use using location, property and
Earth Observation data. In particular, the search is on for startups which can help decision-makers make better land use choices through data, digital tools and spatial insights.
These tools should support more efficient, resilient and multifunctional use of land across housing, infrastructure, energy, food production and nature recovery. Each of the three startups will receive up to £20,000 equity free funding.
More than a dozen startups showing innovative use of data in land use and management have already been supported through the Accelerator.
James Stretton is 6th generation livestock farmer and also the Founder and CEO of JustFarm, an artificial intelligence platform designed to simplify farm subsidy management. JustFarm has helped over 700 farms plan Sustainable Farming Incentive agreements since it opened in June, helping them secure essential funding to and deliver key environmental benefits.
