What Is AgriScale?
The AgriScale — Accelerating Agri-tech Manufacturing competition is Innovate UK's dedicated funding programme for companies developing agricultural technology. With up to £13 million available, it supports the transition from working prototypes to full-scale commercial manufacturing.
The programme is split into two strands: Industrial Research and Experimental Development, with individual project funding ranging from £250,000 to £750,000 over 6 to 12 months.
What It Funds
AgriScale specifically targets the manufacturing scale-up of precision agriculture hardware and systems, including:
Sensors and IoT devices — soil monitoring, environmental sensing, and crop health systems
Robotics and automation — autonomous platforms, robotic harvesters, and field robots
Drone systems — UAV platforms for crop monitoring, spraying, and data collection
Fleet management — systems for coordinating multiple autonomous machines
Data processing hardware — edge computing devices for real-time field analytics
Why This Matters for UK Farming
The UK has strong agri-tech research and development, but too many promising technologies stall at the prototype stage. AgriScale addresses this directly by funding the manufacturing gap — the expensive, complex transition from a working demo to a product that can be produced at scale and deployed on farms.
For UK farmers, this means more precision agriculture products reaching the market sooner, at lower cost, and designed for British farming conditions.
How to Apply
Applications are submitted through the Innovate UK portal. An online briefing was held on 8 April 2026, and the competition closes on 3 June 2026.
Full competition details are available on the Innovate UK funding service.
UKPAI and AgriScale
The UK Precision Agriculture Institute is preparing its own application to the AgriScale programme, focused on scaling education delivery and field trial infrastructure. We will share updates as the application develops.