Ponda, a biomaterials startup, has secured a £2.4 million grant through DEFRA's Farming Innovation Programme, co-funded by Innovate UK, to lead a wetland farming project. Producing BioPuff, a plant-based insulation for apparel and accessories, Ponda will run a 30-month programme establishing a 30-hectare demonstration site for growing bulrush (typha latifolia) on rewetted peatland.
Drained peatlands are among the United Kingdom's largest sources of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Through paludiculture - the cultivation of bulrushes on rewetted peatland - wetlands remain wet, continue storing carbon, recover biodiversity and produce commercially valuable crops. BioPuff has been developed as a renewable alternative to fossil-fuel-based synthetic insulation and conventional animal down, with the potential to reduce embedded carbon by up to 88% compared with goose down. The material has already featured in products from Berghaus, Stella McCartney, Ahluwalia and Sheep Inc.
Delivered in collaboration with J&K Barnard Farms, Liverpool John Moores University, Lancashire Wildlife Trust, Finance Earth and Berghaus, the project is expected to become one of the world's largest demonstrations of bulrush paludiculture. Over the 30 months, the consortium aims to restore peatland at landscape scale, demonstrate bulrush yields of approximately three tonnes per hectare, avoid an estimated 15,000 tonnes of CO2e emissions by 2050 and create new income opportunities for farmers and landowners. Financial modelling by Finance Earth suggests the demonstration could begin generating commercial revenues within 12 months of project completion.
Coinciding with the award, Ponda has launched an investment crowdfunding campaign on Republic open to eligible investors. The grant follows Ponda's £2 million seed round, announced in November 2025 and co-led by Faber and Counteract, with participation from PDS Ventures, Evenlode Impact and the Royal College of Art. Including grants and awards, Ponda has now secured £5.5 million in funding.
This funding is a major milestone for Ponda because it moves our work beyond pilot projects towards the real-world production systems the market needs. We're not simply developing a new material - we're building the agricultural, processing and supply chain needed to produce it at scale. BioPuff® is our first proof point, but the bigger opportunity is demonstrating that restored wetlands can support commercially significant material production. This project gives us the opportunity to prove that model in the UK, creating value for farmers, strengthening climate resilience and helping reshape the future of textile materials.
This is an exciting project with significant economic and environmental benefits. Demonstrating a commercially viable approach to managing lowland peat at scale - one that improves biodiversity while supporting sustainable farming has huge potential to transform how we manage these landscapes for the future.
What makes this project important is that it brings together every part of the system - from land management and crop production to processing and end use. Support from the Farming Innovation Programme is helping accelerate work that has the potential to demonstrate that wetland farming can be operationally credible, commercially viable and scalable.
