Blood sucking ahdb

[White rabbit]

Tarw coch we are not expecting the courts to do anything but uphold the law its just that if we had enough of us turning up at court we could gain a lot of publicity especially if all the press were informed

 

[Highland Mule]

Tarw coch we are not expecting the courts to do anything but uphold the law its just that if we had enough of us turning up at court we could gain a lot of publicity especially if all the press were informed

Do yourself a favour and get someone else to handle your PR .

 

[Tarw Coch]

Tarw coch we are not expecting the courts to do anything but uphold the law its just that if we had enough of us turning up at court we could gain a lot of publicity especially if all the press were informed

I wouldn’t hold much hope of the press being interested and if they were I certainly wouldn’t count on them taking your side.

The only way you’re going to get the outcome you want is if you follow official procedures and get enough votes of support,

 

[Highland Mule]

"Multi-millionaire wants someone else to pay his marketing costs". Not exactly going to compete favourably against "Boris taxes nurses for their Covid tests"

 

[White rabbit]

i don't know what you on highland mule but you not taking enough ,since when has the ahdb got anything to do with marketing

 

[Highland Mule]

i don't know what you on highland mule but you not taking enough ,since when has the ahdb got anything to do with marketing

Post 18 et. seq.

https://ahdb.org.uk/marketing

 

[White rabbit]

Just received a email from a lady in the Netherlands who is following our campaign,she was instrumental in helping the Dutch growers get rid of their ahdb equivalent,she has gone through ahdb accounts and it appears they are holding far more reserves than legally allowed what a surprise,she mentioned that they are even more devious than their organisation, one very good point she raised is the ahdb is allowing some people to defer payment till next year,this is very noble of them when their staff has been sat at home for 4 months not doing any research shouldn't we have this time taken off our levy.

 

[White rabbit]

Wouldn't you think they should be banning me from this forum after all it looks like the ahdb are running this show.

 

[Tealo]

Price dictates demand not advertising.

How do people spend so much money on things they never knew they wanted without advertising?

 

[Tarw Coch]

Wouldn't you think they should be banning me from this forum after all it looks like the ahdb are running this show.

What makes you say that?

 

[Tarw Coch]

Wouldn't you think they should be banning me from this forum after all it looks like the ahdb are running this show.

What makes you say that?

 

[White rabbit]

is that a joke tarw coch

 

[Tarw Coch]

is that a joke tarw coch

Not at all, in what way do you think ahdb are running the show?
They post stuff in this section but that’s about it, I haven’t seen them engage in discussion on any other part of the forum and as very few of the topics they have posted in this section have any replies they just tend to stick a post up and that’s it.

 

[Goweresque]

Goweresque with all do respect we had a review in 2018 with the results published a few months ago with one conclusion it was an absolute farce,150,000 eligible to vote 971 replied less than half a percent the ahdb staff must have thrown a party.Defra and the ahdb did a great job keeping it under the radar ,why did they not send everyone a notification they are keen enough to continually send old out of date rubbish in the post,back to the results of the 971 replies 380 were non levy payers how the hell did they get in there and more importantly how come they found out about the review,this group were only going to vote one way since they receive grants (look at the accounts there is a list has long has your arm) so we decided to conduct our own ballot even though the ahdb and may I say the nfu have less than helpful,we managed to get 1600 names out of the ahdb out of a possible 4300 when we questioned them they said that was all the companies and they were not allowed to release private names,then last week we had a email saying there had been an oversight and they had found another 200 ,we may not succeed in getting the numbers there might be ballot papers left behind the clock or in the in tray but we tried and with one hand tied behind our back ,but there is going to be a lot of pain if we don't get some result a lot of growers supplying catering ,pubs and restaurants are really in trouble,the ahdb solution is if you write in and plead they will let you defer till next spring now that's when things get really messy we have a quite a few growers who pay between 50,000 to 100,000 pounds a year now we will have growers next spring having to find £100,000 to £200,000 now what will be ahdb next move ,first they send a solicitor letter with a few extra hundred pounds added ( I wonder if the solicitor got a vote) or a court order either way a rock and a hard place come to mind

I still don't get it. The ballot the you talk about wasn't a statutory one, it was basically an opinion poll across all sectors, arranged by the AHDB themselves. It was not a 'Do you want the levy to continue Yes/No' question, that was legally binding on the AHDB.

Whereas as far as I understand the law, any individual sector within the AHDB (ie beef/cereals/horticulture/dairy etc) can request a formal legally binding ballot on the continuation of the levy in their individual sector, if 5% of the levy payers in that sector request one. I think there is a limit how often such a ballot can be requested though. Given the lower numbers of veg growers vs other sectors, it appears that only 70 horticulture levy payers have to request such a ballot, so why are you not going down that route? If they are all as up in arms about it as you are then they will vote to end it by a landslide surely?

 

[White rabbit]

Goweresque just look how they have been over supplying the names we requested after we challenged them because we only received 465 out of a possible 2700 they were adamant the rest were private ,then after the ballot papers went out they contacted us to say do to a oversight they had found another 200,we don't want ahdb running a ballot you wouldn't trust them to run a bath,you have to remember these people have got seriously well paid jobs and will any do anything to keep them ,if any farmer or grower thinks the ahdb have their interests at heart they are deluded it's all about the money and a lot of the blame for this is down to peter Kendal

 

[An Gof]

Goweresque just look how they have been over supplying the names we requested after we challenged them because we only received 465 out of a possible 2700 they were adamant the rest were private ,then after the ballot papers went out they contacted us to say do to a oversight they had found another 200,we don't want ahdb running a ballot you wouldn't trust them to run a bath,you have to remember these people have got seriously well paid jobs and will any do anything to keep them ,if any farmer or grower thinks the ahdb have their interests at heart they are deluded it's all about the money and a lot of the blame for this is down to peter Kendal

I think it is safe to say that Peter Kendall’s tenure at AHDB will not go down in history as the pinnacle of his career.

 

[Highland Mule]

Goweresque just look how they have been over supplying the names we requested after we challenged them because we only received 465 out of a possible 2700 they were adamant the rest were private ,then after the ballot papers went out they contacted us to say do to a oversight they had found another 200,we don't want ahdb running a ballot you wouldn't trust them to run a bath,you have to remember these people have got seriously well paid jobs and will any do anything to keep them ,if any farmer or grower thinks the ahdb have their interests at heart they are deluded it's all about the money and a lot of the blame for this is down to peter Kendal

Is your organisation formally constituted and able to fully comply with GDPR? I can understand why they wouldn’t be able to give you names otherwise. In fact, even if you were there would be no legal mechanism for them to pass them on. It’s easy to blame them for being disorganised or whatever but you’ve asked them to do the impossible, I suspect.

Frankly, I can’t see any proper justification for not at least going through the official channels first, and retaining the option for doing what you will thereafter.

 

[Goweresque]

Goweresque just look how they have been over supplying the names we requested after we challenged them because we only received 465 out of a possible 2700 they were adamant the rest were private ,then after the ballot papers went out they contacted us to say do to a oversight they had found another 200,we don't want ahdb running a ballot you wouldn't trust them to run a bath,you have to remember these people have got seriously well paid jobs and will any do anything to keep them ,if any farmer or grower thinks the ahdb have their interests at heart they are deluded it's all about the money and a lot of the blame for this is down to peter Kendal

What you don't seem to see is that the AHDB are bound by the law that establishes them. Which includes provisions for sector levy abolition ballots. Which they would have to run according to the law (including statutory law on how such votes must be organised). If they didn't they would open themselves up to people like yourself taking them to judicial review for failing to adhere to the law.

Thats the way I would be attacking this - I would get a consortium of like minded growers together to fund a legal opinion on the exact state of the law surrounding the AHDB and its powers, and then demand a sector ballot, and then scrutinise how it is run with a microscope and if anything looks dodgy immediately hit them with legal attacks. My first point of attack would be to demand that the ballot be run by an outside body, at arms length from the AHDB.

The only way to attack such bodies is to use their own rules against them. If you try to do it outside of that they will run rings around you. As you are finding.

 

[Highland Mule]

What you don't seem to see is that the AHDB are bound by the law that establishes them. Which includes provisions for sector levy abolition ballots. Which they would have to run according to the law (including statutory law on how such votes must be organised). If they didn't they would open themselves up to people like yourself taking them to judicial review for failing to adhere to the law.

Thats the way I would be attacking this - I would get a consortium of like minded growers together to fund a legal opinion on the exact state of the law surrounding the AHDB and its powers, and then demand a sector ballot, and then scrutinise how it is run with a microscope and if anything looks dodgy immediately hit them with legal attacks. My first point of attack would be to demand that the ballot be run by an outside body, at arms length from the AHDB.

The only way to attack such bodies is to use their own rules against them. If you try to do it outside of that they will run rings around you. As you are finding.

It does all feel a bit amateur and doomed to failure, doesn't it, for something being arranged by a group of supposedly highly successful millionaire businessmen?

 

[White rabbit]

I can see why you are thinking how you do but we have a lot of people working behind the scenes,the ahdb are getting bombarded with requests guy attenborogh is really getting peed off with us ,we are still waiting for all the credit card details for the 3years that one really got his back up ,the next one he gets which he has to let us have will cause him to go into melt down,you may think because I come on here we are conducting a amateurish campaign nothing could be further from the truth ,we are bringing on board lawyers who really know about these matters,part of the reason I come on here is because I know the ahdb are watching and part because I enjoy a good argument,been has you farmers have so much time on your hands try getting hold of farming for 5a day by the food foundation it's an excellent read,when you think about it we are producing healthy food and get very little help in fact quite the opposite we are producing 25 percent of the output on 3 percent of the land where has most farmers have getting paid now £70 an acre and before £100 an for the last 25 or more years we get next to nothing and yet we have to pay these comedians at ahdb a slice of our turnover, look at you cereal boys 47p a ton 4ton to the acre £1.88 an acre god you must lay awake at thinking about it,or do you lay awake thinking about what colour Range Rover to get let's face it you must have received several hundreds of thousands that we haven't.