Colin Mason is now an ADOPT Project Facilitator

Colin Mason, veterinary surgeon at Ruminant Revival, has been registered as a Project Facilitator on the ADOPT (Accelerating Development of Practices and Technologies) programme. Defra (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) is partnering with Innovate UK to fund projects that benefit farmers, growers and foresters in England.

ADOPT is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme. It is designed to help farmers, growers and foresters in England trial practical solutions to on-farm challenges, with a particular focus on productivity and sustainability. Funding runs to £100,000 per project, supporting collaborative trials from six months to two years in length.

Every project applying for ADOPT funding must include a registered Project Facilitator. Facilitators are independent professionals and their role is central to both the application process and project delivery. Depending on the project, that can mean acting as project manager throughout, helping prepare reporting documents, maintaining communication between partners, and providing technical expertise to give the project the best chance of success.

For Colin, registration as a facilitator is a practical extension of the work Ruminant Revival already does. Farmers in England with an on-farm question they want to investigate – whether that’s a change in grazing practice, an approach to parasite management, or a technology they want to put to the test – can search the Innovate UK Business Connect facilitator directory at https://iuk-business-connect.org.uk/adopt-project-facilitators/ to find a registered facilitator, or get in touch with the Ruminant Revival team directly.

“Farmers in England are sitting on some of the most valuable practical knowledge in agriculture but rarely have the structure or funding to turn knowledge into practice that the wider industry can use. ADOPT exists to change that. I’m genuinely excited to be part of this – ADOPT gives us a real opportunity to turn curiosity into something rigorous and transferable. If you’ve got a question about your system that you’ve always wanted to properly investigate, now there’s a route to do it.”