Following preliminary announcements earlier this year, DEFRA have now confirmed that the final £32 million phase of the Future Farm Resilience Fund support programme will open in September.
The scheme is intended to help farmers and land managers come to terms with:
- the impact of reductions to direct payments on their business
- how their business models might need to adapt
- business planning
- performance recording
- succession planning
The support will be delivered through one-to-one meetings and workshops with one of several organisations (including most of the main agricultural consultancy firms). A link to the regional index is included below. As with previous phases, the support will be offered free of charge.
The process is that after an initial meeting the consultant will carry out a detailed review of historic financial accounts and systems, key people in the business, existing enterprises, support schemes and succession plans. The report then assesses the impact of subsidy reform, and concludes with SWOT analysis, business options, and recommendations for the future.
The whole process takes about a day of the proprietor’s time, spread over several weeks and probably two or three times that much of the consultant’s time. The end product will be a fairly comprehensive report running to about 20 pages on the business, its history, current viability and future.
Given that the cost of the process and report is wholly funded by DEFRA and the end product is a helpful and genuinely valuable document, the only question must be “why wouldn’t you go through the process?”
Find out more
If you would like to know more about how we can help you make sense of some of the changes that are upon us, then please contact us.
