Confidential hardship grants
One-off grants for Devon farmers and farming families going through unexpected financial hardship — given quickly, quietly, and with no fee.
Farming hardship takes many forms. A herd TB breakdown that wipes out a year of income. A bad storm or a bluetongue case that strips a lamb crop. A serious illness in the family of a one-man operation. A bereavement that leaves someone running a business and a household alone for the first time. Each of those stories has knocked at our door over the years.
Grants are typically modest — a few hundred to a few thousand pounds — and are aimed at easing immediate pressure: a utility bill, a mortgage catch-up, replacement of a piece of kit essential to the business, a few weeks' respite. We do not try to rebuild a farm's finances, and we do not pretend to be a lender. What we offer is a bridge over an unexpectedly difficult few weeks.
Agricultural education grants
Grants to schools, colleges, young farmers' clubs and community groups across Devon whose work widens public understanding of the county's farming.
Our objects include the advancement of public education in agriculture in Devon. In practice that has meant a mixed portfolio of small grants — a primary school farm visit programme, a county-wide Young Farmers' skills competition, stockmanship bursaries for students at Bicton or Duchy College, resources for an open-farm day, a travel grant for a student to attend an industry placement. We tend to fund in small amounts — but we fund early, and we fund the things larger charities overlook.
Research grants & dissemination
Practical research grants for work that helps Devon farming adapt — plus support for making the useful results of that research available to the farmers who need them.
The kind of research we are interested in is the kind that changes what happens at the farm gate. Soil health trials. Work on dairy resilience through a poor forage year. Studies of practical approaches to bovine TB. Research on the mental health of farmers in isolated parishes. Investigations into flood management that actually helps a floodplain farm. Once research is done, we also fund the quieter work of disseminating it — farm walks, practical guides, events at Westpoint or the Devon County Show — so that what's learned reaches the farmers who can use it.
Rural community & mental health support
Working with Devon's rural network — the Farming Community Network, YANA, RABI, local vets and ministers — so that when a farm household is struggling, someone knows to knock.
Hardship rarely announces itself. By the time it becomes obvious — bills piling up, livestock care slipping, a neighbour worried about a phone that used to be answered — a family is often well into crisis. Part of our work is operating as a node in the wider Devon rural network: sharing information appropriately, making referrals to others with the skills we don't have (farm mental-health specialists, debt advisers, rural chaplains), and receiving referrals in return. We are not a mental-health service, but we work alongside those who are.
A quiet conversation, a careful referral, a small grant — often enough to turn things around.
If you are a farmer, a referrer, a partner organisation or a prospective funder, the best thing is simply to get in touch. We will treat every contact confidentially, and we will respond within a few working days.