Forage Aid

Addington Fund’s Forage Aid scheme supports farmers in England and Wales (with a Defra holding number) who face a clear and present risk of the livestock suffering due to extreme weather or an animal disease outbreak.

In cases of severe weather, as defined by the Met Office, which causes you unexpected costs and prevailing hardship, we use our Forage Aid scheme to help viable working farm businesses recover. We have provided short term financial aid in the past, including during the 2007 Gloucestershire floods, when extreme weather affected Wales and Cumbria in 2013, flooding on the Somerset Levels in 2014, and in northern England in 2015/16 when farmers needed to buy extra feed and fodder.

Addington Fund began as a response to farms being unable to trade livestock due to notifiable animal diseases such as Classical Swine Fever, Swine Vesicular Disease and Foot and Mouth disease.

Amid the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak, over 22,000 farmers whose businesses were affected by movement restrictions applied for our financial help. In response, we approved grant requests totalling more than £10.3 million.

During this time, many farmers had to have their stock culled because of contracting the disease. A Government run scheme compensated farmers for culled livestock, however our help was focused on helping producers who were able to keep their stock but became victims of the ensuing strict movement restrictions which halted sales of stock and left farmers overstocked. By making grants to these farmers, we helped to cover the substantial extra costs of buying in large additional quantities of animal feed and prevented major welfare issues

In 2023, Addington Fund joined forces with Forage Aid to expand our ability to support farmers facing difficulties due to extreme weather and disease.

Read our FAQs page for more examples on how we can help. We regret that we cannot assist you with long term business debts or problems caused by low prices for farm produce.

Trustees’ Discretionary Fund

Supporting farms with short term financial aid during times of hardship caused by unforeseen circumstances.

The Addington Fund assists working farmers who are experiencing hardship in times of emergency, for example following an illness, bereavement or accident.

We realise in such times you will be worried about looking after the animals on your farm, but your circumstances may be causing a temporary cash flow problem which is making things difficult to feed your sheep or cattle.

Are you eligible?

• You are a working farmer and your main income must be from farming an agricultural holding and you are experiencing hardship because of an emergency situation through no fault of your own.

• You are unable to provide funding for this yourself by looking at normal business practices, such as selling store animals or drawing on any reserves/savings/overdraft facility.

• We are unable to assist when there is a loss, or reduction of, income due to market forces nor can we provide grants towards business debts.

Please note that grants are made at the discretion of Trustees and priority will be given to applicants depending on their circumstances.

Regrettably, we cannot help everyone who comes to us so please try and describe your particular situation as clearly as possible.

If your circumstances do not fit the above remit, we may still be able to help. Please contact us to discuss your situation before submitting an application. 

Read our FAQs page for more examples on how we can help. We regret that we cannot assist you with long term business debts or problems caused by low prices for farm produce.