Financing your agricultural robotics solution: the keys to understanding [FRENCH MARKET]

Integrating a robot into a farming operation represents a significant investment. To help farmers navigate their options, a dedicated workshop on funding sources held during the Field Day France brought together practitioners, experts, and farmers to explore three main avenues: bank loans, R&D-related tax incentives, and emerging thinking around usage-based rather than ownership-based models.

Agilor: Crédit Agricole's Dedicated Agricultural Equipment Financing

The most natural first step when facing a major investment is to turn to your bank. Bruno Delpic, Agilor representative at Crédit Agricole Toulouse 31, presented this financing solution specifically designed for agricultural equipment including robots.

"The idea behind Agilor, behind this financing system, is flexibility and speed of decision-making. Today, we're looking at response times ranging from one hour to 48 hours." — Bruno Delpic

What Is Agilor?

Agilor is a medium-term financing product developed by Crédit Agricole around thirty years ago. Its key features include:

• Flexible repayment terms: from 2 to 7 years (up to 10 years depending on the equipment)
• Multiple repayment schedules: annual, semi-annual, quarterly, or monthly, with the option to defer the first instalment
• Rapid response times: between 1 hour and 48 hours, thanks to automated decision-support tools
• Fixed interest rate: approximately 3.75% for a 7-year loan at the time of the workshop
• Fully digital process: from application to electronic signature

How to Access It?

One distinctive feature of Agilor is that the financing application is submitted directly through the dealer, not at a bank branch. If the dealer is affiliated with Crédit Agricole, they can enter the application, agree on the terms with the customer, and obtain near-instant approval.

"Many farming customers prefer going to an Agilor-affiliated dealer because they know it's flexible and fast." — Bruno Delpic

Eligibility requirements: being a Crédit Agricole customer and having sufficient repayment capacity. The recommended first step: discuss the project with your bank advisor and accountant before visiting any dealer.

What About Collective Purchases?

Good news for CUMAs (shared agricultural machinery cooperatives) and other collective structures: Agilor is available to all legal entities (GAEC, SARL, CUMA, sole traders). In the case of joint purchases by two or three co-buyers, each entity submits its own financing application, coordinated with the others.

It is also worth noting that some manufacturers or dealers contribute to interest payments to reduce the overall cost of the loan — a negotiating lever not to be overlooked.

Bruno Delpic's advice before getting started: "Talk to your advisor and accountant first, to properly size the project."

The Research Tax Credit: An Underused Option in Agriculture

Maxime Gautier, from Leyton, a specialist consultancy in innovation financing, introduced a less familiar perspective for farmers: the Research Tax Credit (Crédit d'Impôt Recherche, or CIR).

"There is currently no specific national scheme for a farmer looking to purchase a robot." — Maxime Gautier

Limited Conventional Subsidies for Farmers

On the subject of direct grants for purchasing robotic equipment, the picture is straightforward: as of today, no dedicated national scheme exists for individual farmers wishing to buy a robot. Regional grants — sometimes co-funded by the Water Agency or European funds — remain the main avenue to explore, ideally with the help of an accountant, a chamber of agriculture, or a cooperative.

BPI France schemes, meanwhile, are primarily aimed at cooperatives, trading companies, or manufacturers involved in developing innovative solutions.

"The French Court of Auditors recommended last year that the research tax credit be better deployed in agriculture, recognising that knowledge is emerging from the individual initiatives of farmers." — Maxime Gautier

The CIR: Recognising Farmers as R&D Contributors

The Research Tax Credit allows eligible entities to recover 30% of expenditure on research and development in the form of a tax credit. It applies to structures subject to corporate income tax (micro-BA tax regimes are excluded).

But in what sense might a farmer be doing R&D? The answer lies in the concept of the "farmer-researcher": when a farmer integrates an innovative piece of equipment with limited real-world feedback, experiments with it, documents the process, and contributes to the generation of new knowledge, they may well meet the five eligibility criteria for the CIR.

"What we call the farmer-researcher is someone who doesn't just use the technology, but who contributes to advancing knowledge." — Maxime Gautier

An additional benefit: the scheme is retroactive for three years. A technical audit can assess whether a farm qualifies based on activity in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

Important caveat: if it is the dealer who conducts trials on the farmer's land, the dealer — not the farmer — will be the one to benefit from the CIR. Eligibility is determined by the farmer's own initiative.

Towards Usage Rather Than Ownership?

A question from the floor, raised by a representative of FDCUMA 31, opened a more forward-looking discussion: what if financing were no longer about owning equipment, but about using it?

Finance leasing (or "Agilor bail") already exists at Crédit Agricole for agricultural equipment, similar to car leasing. Bruno Delpic confirmed that this option is increasingly being requested.

Maxime Gautier also flagged the introduction in 2026 of a specific tax credit for CUMAs, worth between €500 and €3,000 per member per year, a clear signal of growing public policy attention towards shared-use models.

Collective investment can also be a relevant option to facilitate the acquisition of a robot. The CUMA model (Coopératives d'Utilisation de Matériel Agricole — Agricultural Equipment Sharing Cooperatives) allows several farmers to pool the purchase and use of equipment. Applied to agricultural robotics, this model can offer several advantages:

• Reduced individual financial risk: the investment cost is shared, lowering the burden on each farm and making access to the technology more affordable.
• Optimised annual usage volume: sharing increases annual utilisation (number of hours, hectares per year), thereby improving return on investment.
• Collective skills development: farmers can learn together how to operate, configure and maintain the equipment, making adoption easier for everyone involved.

It is recommended to reach out to the departmental or regional CUMA federations, which can provide support throughout the process — from project structuring and feasibility studies to legal and organisational considerations.

A Real-World Project: Combining Multiple Funding Sources

Florent Georges, an advisor at the CUMA Federation of Gers and Hautes-Pyrénées and a farmer in a 150-hectare family GAEC specialising in organic arable and vegetable crops, provides a compelling illustration of how these different levers can be combined.

Faced with a farm where "yesterday we were three, tomorrow we'll be two, and the day after perhaps just one", robotics emerges as a factor of both viability and profitability.

His project: introducing field robots for vegetables, as well as deploying them inside a photovoltaic greenhouse developed in partnership with Reden Solar, where tree crops (avocados, clementines, oranges) and interplanted vegetables will be grown.

"I'm not trying to do fundamental research — I'm just trying to solve my problem." — Florent Georges

A pragmatic stance that does not, however, preclude access to innovation funding. As Pierre Compère pointed out:

"We can envision not only technological development, but also the operational development of a shared robot service offering. All of this can fit within an R&D project." — Pierre Compère

Identified Funding Sources

• Agilor / Crédit Agricole: as a customer, financing for robotic equipment falls directly within eligible cases
• Occitanie regional grant: co-funded by the Water Agency and Europe, notably accessible to young farmers

A Technical Challenge That Opens the Door to the CIR

The photovoltaic greenhouse — 50% glazed and 50% panel-covered, with developing tree crops — presents a genuine technical challenge for autonomous robotics: GPS triangulation is disrupted by the structure and vegetation, making precision insufficient for operator-free operation.

"Without any pretension of doing research, but rather development to make this cropping system viable", as Florent Georges put it — a formulation that, in Maxime Gautier's view, could well meet the CIR eligibility criteria.

The workshop shed light on a reality that is often overlooked: financing an agricultural robot rarely comes down to a single solution, but rather to an intelligent combination of complementary levers. And it is often by asking the right questions — of your banker, accountant, dealer, or a specialist consultancy — that the true range of possibilities becomes clear.

Watch the full session on replay!