AHDB - Levy

[Campbell]

my levy of 21,000 which takes my contribution to 300,000 pounds

...

 

[kiwi pom]

...

Not just me thinking that's a big number then

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Thanks @Kiwi Pete . Does that body just do promotional work, or fund/facilitate R&D and knowledge transfer as well?

I'm not sure what the beef levies are, but I've just looked up that our sheep levies are 63p/hd for AHDB.

All of the above
Obviously red meat is comparatively expensive here because everything else is relatively half price - so we do have to explain to our new-age consumers the health benefits our more expensive proteins provide that meats not reared on pasture cannot, or we simply lose market share.
There's also an absolute wealth of information, benchmarking type tools, online calculators, and general stats/ facts&figures so well worthy of my levy, in my opinion at least. And some great recipes more inline with 'modern cuisine' (as opposed to singed chops and corned beef) that help invite customers to give things a try

 

[whiterabbit]

46 thousand for 3 days a week is the average for ahdb staff and peter Kendall 150,000 for one day a week what does he do make the coffee hardly peanuts brisel

 

[livestock 1]

The argument about lack of advertising is generally that farmers are not the target audience so we wouldn’t see it - similar to the ’Countryfile’ debate. How many of us watch prime time or day time tv? Or read ‘good house keeping’ magazines? No idea if this is spin or correct but it would be nice to see some impact analysis of what they do do.

My biggest gripe about AHDB is that if you read the annual reports the retailers consistently are the biggest beneficiaries of their work particularly on carcass utilisation.

Yes agreed. I was thinking along the lines of reminding someone watching Coronation Street that there’s still the option to have some beef or lamb

 

[neilo]

All of the above
Obviously red meat is comparatively expensive here because everything else is relatively half price - so we do have to explain to our new-age consumers the health benefits our more expensive proteins provide that meats not reared on pasture cannot, or we simply lose market share.
There's also an absolute wealth of information, benchmarking type tools, online calculators, and general stats/ facts&figures so well worthy of my levy, in my opinion at least. And some great recipes more inline with 'modern cuisine' (as opposed to singed chops and corned beef) that help invite customers to give things a try

To be fair, AHDB provide that wealth of info, benchmarking stuff, stats, market prices, etc, at least as far as Sheep, Beef and Dairy are concerned, but it doesn't seem to be valued by levy payers over here. http://beefandlamb.ahdb.org.uk/

They also provide a 'consumer' site, with lots of recipes, nutritional information, etc: https://www.simplybeefandlamb.co.uk/

and a 'trade' site: http://www.qsmbeefandlamb.co.uk/

 

[brigadoon]

Thanks @Kiwi Pete . Does that body just do promotional work, or fund/facilitate R&D and knowledge transfer as well?

I'm not sure what the beef levies are, but I've just looked up that our sheep levies are 63p/hd for AHDB.

£5.50 per head for cattle

 

[gone up the hill]

£5.50 per head for cattle

This side of the border its £4.05 head for cattle

 

[The Ruminant]

Interesting first post for a new member, hopefully you back your argument and not just start a fight and disappear.

I don’t think he’s a new member.....
..... he sounds very like an old member who continually bangs the same couple of drums. AHDB is one and he’s obsessed with Peter Kendall and the salaries received by him and others.
Oh, but hang on, he’s a 68 year old vegetable grower so it can’t be who I think it is

 

[brigadoon]

This side of the border its £4.05 head for cattle

Must be the scottish premium

 

[gone up the hill]

46 thousand for 3 days a week is the average for ahdb staff and peter Kendall 150,000 for one day a week what does he do make the coffee hardly peanuts brisel

Sector board chairman/ woman work an average of 3/4 days a week and get £45k ish a year, most AHDB staff are generally full time.

Peter Kendall gets about £55k a year for a 2 day week, spends most of his time trying to stop any advertising being carried out by the AHDB, you are thinking of Jayne King @whiterabbit who gets about £150k for heading the AHDB full time, how she got the job is beyond me as the only claim to fame she has is as an editor taking the very popular Farmers weekly mag and turning it into nothing better than a woman's weekly with falling sales.

As for this review, a complete waste of time, they spent tens of thousands of levy payers money 3/4 years ago doing the same type of review including holding meetings across the country, the over riding outcome of that was levy payers across all sectors told them they want a lot less money spent on R+D etc and a lot more money spent on advertising, suffice to say the AHDB believe that most levy payers money should be spent on R+D etc to help us produce more for less , ie so the farm gate price can be lowered by the supermarkets.

Irony of the above is that whilst the AHDB with their left hand are telling us to cut costs their right hand are busy drawing up/ supporting Eid tagging/ real time data uploads of inputs ( to help the buyers work out our Cop ) which will cost 90% of livestock farms thousands to comply with and suffice actually adding to our costs for no gain!

On the current advertising, they actually did go to this years game fair ( well the beef and lamb board told us back in Jan they were going there so I assume they did )

I think with brexit and the need to reduce costs then the AHDB and everything like Eid tagging of cattle/ sheep etc needs to be scrapped as none of it has/ will benefit farmers.

 

[ajd132]

I was annoyed to see AHDB benchmarking figures in a Bayer magazine the other day. This does not benefit farmers.

 

[gone up the hill]

I was annoyed to see AHDB benchmarking figures in a Bayer magazine the other day. This does not benefit farmers.

From what I gather from speaking to AHDB staff they believe that they should be doing a lot more of this type of thing as apparently it benefits farmers, when asked how they couldn't answer!

 

[Frank-the-Wool]

From what I gather from speaking to AHDB staff they believe that they should be doing a lot more of this type of thing as apparently it benefits farmers, when asked how they couldn't answer!

Of course they want to do more of this as it keeps them in jobs and driving expensive cars.
I receive an email called Forage for Knowledge which contains what must be the most useless piece of information about how much the grass has or has not grown.
I can usually work out the grass growth myself when I go out in the morning and check the sheep and cattle.

Or am I just an old fashioned Luddite who cannot see the benefit of AHDB telling me about grass growth!!

 

[hally]

What really annoys me is the fact this information is freely available from a number of sources on the internet. Yet they feel it’s a good use of our money to reproduce it and send it directly to our farms in this day and age of e mails

 

[gone up the hill]

Of course they want to do more of this as it keeps them in jobs and driving expensive cars.
I receive an email called Forage for Knowledge which contains what must be the most useless piece of information about how much the grass has or has not grown.
I can usually work out the grass growth myself when I go out in the morning and check the sheep and cattle.

Or am I just an old fashioned Luddite who cannot see the benefit of AHDB telling me about grass growth!!

How can farmers actually get the AHDB to listen thou?? as they clearly don't listen to any feedback/ reviews that advocate less BS like the above and the money used instead on advertising etc.

The live to dead days are good, trouble is they have all but stopped doing them, there is a sheep one next Tuesday at ABP but the trouble is the email from the AHDB only came today about it which is next to useless and not enough notice at this time of year.

Since the loss of some key staff the beef and lamb section seems to have rapidly gone backwards the last 6 months.

 

[whiterabbit]

farmers weekly must run all letters by Jane king to make sure there is none complaining about the ahdb several growers trying to get some printed but none so far is the ruminant an ahdb employee if he is not he ought to be

 

[gone up the hill]

I don’t think he’s a new member.....
..... he sounds very like an old member who continually bangs the same couple of drums. AHDB is one and he’s obsessed with Peter Kendall and the salaries received by him and others.
Oh, but hang on, he’s a 68 year old vegetable grower so it can’t be who I think it is

The new user is NOTHING to do with me so please don't try and stir up trouble by claiming otherwise.

What is your relship to the AHDB, sounds like you work for them?

Sad state of affairs when people want to have a genuine debate with posts from both sides of that debate very welcome about a topic such as the AHDB and people like you Ruminant try to spin a load of lies to try and shut that debate down!

 

[gone up the hill]

farmers weekly must run all letters by Jane king to make sure there is none complaining about the ahdb several growers trying to get some printed but none so far is the ruminant an ahdb employee if he is not he ought to be

If you work for the Farmers weekly then you are all but guaranteed a job at the AHDB if you want one and the same goes for the NFU.

Those growers should go to the FG, at least one of their reporters is a member of TFF.

 

[whiterabbit]

Well said gone up the hill