Rural Development Fund Announced

Ministers in Defra have announced the latest round of Rural Development Programme funding, involving a package of Growth Programme and Countryside Productivity offers totalling just over £200m. The announcement is available here.

The package includes:

• £45m also from the Growth Programme to top up the business development, food processing and tourism infrastructure offers announced in January 2017.
• £120m from Countryside Productivity for capital projects that improve farm productivity – Funding will be available for a wide range of purposes, including on-farm food processing, and on-farm reservoirs.  

This funding will be made available in stages over the coming months, with Countryside Productivity funding for reservoirs opening for applications from Monday 31 July – the offer details are available here.