Capital grants - Farming Equipment and Technology Fund 2024

[Zippy768]

Prices are a bit low aren't they?
800 for a light bar that can do all the mapping and boundaries?? 1900 for retro fit autosteer??
I was offered an end of line autosteer system for 2k, they may become obsolete.

 

[Renaultman]

Would be nice if you could back date it though to cover the 10’s of thousands I’ve already invested back into my business over the past few years. Now every bugger and his dog who’s playing catch up gets it half price where I’ve had to work my balls off and can’t get a grant for anything I want to invest in! Then in 5 years when I’ve done it there’ll be a f’ing grant

I feel your pain.
We have used it, and it has been useful but also already done a lot before the grants were available.

 

[ajd132]

weigh cells on trailers surely weighbridge would be better???

Much cheaper and aren’t stuck in one yard. We have them and they are brilliant, extremely accurate.

 

[jondear]

View attachment 1165744
I thought one of these be useful so asked the local dealer if one could be obtained for the suggested price, No was the answer, even used ones fetch more than that.

So a non starter there then.

Bought one on last year's it was £ 6500 .God only knows how the average is £4500 .The grant is less than last year as it was £2800 .
The machine I bought was the cheapest I could find that should do the job .Some were 3x the price !

 

[Wheatland]

I was hoping a compost turner would be available

 

[Banana Bar]

Would be nice if you could back date it though to cover the 10’s of thousands I’ve already invested back into my business over the past few years. Now every bugger and his dog who’s playing catch up gets it half price where I’ve had to work my balls off and can’t get a grant for anything I want to invest in! Then in 5 years when I’ve done it there’ll be a f’ing grant

Absolutely, I spent 70k on solar last year, I’ve done VRA. I started doing VRA 15 years ago, how far back shall we ask for!

 

[Iben]

Much cheaper and aren’t stuck in one yard. We have them and they are brilliant, extremely accurate.

Was that retro fitted to existing trailers or new ones? Which manufacturer?

 

[ajd132]

Was that retro fitted to existing trailers or new ones? Which manufacturer?

Retro fitted, they are lorry type ones. Vehicle weighing solutions I think. We bought the kit then my local ag mechanic/fabricator put them on, had to raise the back of the trailer slightly

 

[Weare Cham]

3000 litre TMR mixer? Seems very small.

 

[Bullring]

you need to have the money to pay for it all upfront before you claim it back, no hp agreements allowed. For a lot of people than actually need stuff on grants they probably won’t have the finances available to do it, and if the grants over 25k you need to provide 3 years accounts.

 

[topground]

you need to have the money to pay for it all upfront before you claim it back, no hp agreements allowed. For a lot of people than actually need stuff on grants they probably won’t have the finances available to do it, and if the grants over 25k you need to provide 3 years accounts.

It’s just a civil servants job creation scam.

 

[Spencer]

Absolutely, I spent 70k on solar last year, I’ve done VRA. I started doing VRA 15 years ago, how far back shall we ask for!

14 years 🫣

 

[J 1177]

you need to have the money to pay for it all upfront before you claim it back, no hp agreements allowed. For a lot of people than actually need stuff on grants they probably won’t have the finances available to do it, and if the grants over 25k you need to provide 3 years accounts.

Hand up im in that boat, grant would help but if iv got to buy new its 99 percent of the time on finance, so im better off forgoing the grant and buying affordable second hand. These big grants just dont work for the small guy.

 

[joep83]

3000 litre TMR mixer? Seems very small.

I thought it strange a diet feeder was grant funded at all

 

[lloyd]

3000 litre TMR mixer? Seems very small.

Pity there wasn't a mixer bucket for a telehandler under the scheme.

 

[Daniel]

I can’t believe how negative it has become on here. It’s a grant, it’s easy to apply, stick by the rules and you’ll be paid. I honestly think if Rishi delivered £50k in used notes to each of you personally you’d say the notes were the wrong denomination or it was delivered at the wrong time of day.
You don’t have to apply, please leave it for those who will utilise it AND appreciate the limited amount of funding left.

BB

Yes and no, it might be ‘free’ money but the process is very inefficient. For last years I applied for a basket of various poultry items, all of which had to be installed and working by the 6th December, which proved almost impossible with the lead times involved. Then I have had countless emails requesting more and more pictures of the equipment from people who clearly have no idea what it is they are hoping to see. One of the requestwas to see that a drinker system had an automatic shut off valve, why would it have? You’d never want to shut water off to laying hens, if anything you’d want the valve to automatically fail open, I explained this at length, they went away and discussed it and then decided that on this occasion they could make an exception.

Then with a feeding system they were making all sorts of nit picky requests for pictures, apparently it should use changeover valves and timers etc, when in reality the system doesn’t have or need such things, much back and forth later and I’m still waiting for an answer. I still don’t know if they’ll pay out and it should have been agreed by Christmas.

It’s clearly a make work scheme for civil servants funneling lots of BPS cash away from farmers.

Would be nice if you could back date it though to cover the 10’s of thousands I’ve already invested back into my business over the past few years. Now every bugger and his dog who’s playing catch up gets it half price where I’ve had to work my balls off and can’t get a grant for anything I want to invest in! Then in 5 years when I’ve done it there’ll be a f’ing grant

Also a factor, we spent about £130k on a grading system last autumn to reduce labour cost which is now eligible for 50% grant funding. So there goes a bit of competitive advantage as every man and his dog leapfrogs us!

 

[AGW2]

I’ve a bit of a dilemma as wanting a tine drill but not 100% sure one will do what I want.

I’ve priced some new machines up KV TS and Kuhn Megant which aren’t grant qualifying and also the KRM and Dale that are.

taking grant funding into account the KV is the most expensive but for what I want to do it’s the best of the bunch.

the cheapest would be the KRM assuming I get the full grant on it. but I’m not sure it will do the job I’m wanting as well as the KV. But it is over £10k cheaper!

or do I go out and buy a used tine drill which would be 1/2 of the new grant funded KRM price knowing if it don’t work I can get out dead easy and sell it again?

for now I decided to keep going with the ageing combi as that’s bought and paid for.

I was looking at the Kuhn Megant, at the RFS Show and Kuhn rep said it qualified for the grant?

Is it possible to check with RPA before purchasing; whether or not it qualifies??

 

[goodevans]

Pity there wasn't a mixer bucket for a telehandler under the scheme.

I wandered ,and hoped,that that was one

 

[Renaultman]

Hand up im in that boat, grant would help but if iv got to buy new its 99 percent of the time on finance, so im better off forgoing the grant and buying affordable second hand. These big grants just dont work for the small guy.

I've had 2. Big item was the drill 24k + VAT to find, then wait for the grant to come back. That is as tight as I can afford to go, the other was just autosteer upgrade so wasn't too bad.

 

[Bignor Farmer]

I think the government has bugged my farm. There’s a load of stuff I’ve paid full price for over the last couple of years.
I could do with a grant to help with some sheep handling kit and it’s been taken off the list!

Someone should do a freedom of information request to find the basis for their costings.

I can see how it’s a fantastic scheme if you sell solar panels or £100k forestry heads, not so sure how it’s helpful for farmers with cash flow issues.

How is it supporting farming to take millions of pounds from our “ring fenced” budget and give it to solar and forestry?

I wonder if Rishi even knows that he’s written to farmers this week? I bet if you cornered him he wouldn’t know any of the content.