Blood sucking ahdb

[White rabbit]

Thanks everybody I guess that struck a chord,we knew we were not just fighting the ahdb but the establishment,mates look after each other ,who knows what conversations are going on ,one could be those bloody Lincolnshire peasants make sure they are stopped at any price we don't want them rocking our cushy boat.

 

[glasshouse]

Given this thread started at the beginning of June, and you've wasted God knows how long prior to that setting up and running your own private opinion poll, and only just got around to sending in the formal letters demanding a statutory levy ballot, I hardly think you're in a position to complain about the AHDB taking too long to organise things.

FFS
White rabbit has a farm to run
Unlike adhb

 

[White rabbit]

FFS
White rabbit has a farm to run
Unlike adhb

Nice one

 

[glasshouse]

Looks like the dirty tricks brigade have moved in early ,bits now starting to emerge,one is anybody who doesn't vote is now going to be counted as a yes vote,so this democracy at work is it.

The snouts in the trough always fight dirty when they get rumbled.

 

[glasshouse]

How the hell does that work ,do you make the rules fit the ballot .

The goalposts got moved in the 1979 indyref to a majority of the electorate, not the votes.
Snouts in the trough won

 

[Breakthru]

I would prefer if we could skip the personal insults and cut to the quick. It is fairly obvious that both WR and HM will never agree. It is only recently that HM has made it very clear his view is diametrically opposed to WR and that he hopes he fails in his ballot. You are producing livestock and he is producing Veg. Not even apples and pears it's so far apart its Venus and Mars.
In the livestock industry and to a greater extent arable you share info for your mutual benefit because you all receive a large amount of sub relative to your turnover and the price is set by either a national, european or world price.
In the Veg industry your fellow producer is your competition with the price set by Tesco et al, (of course they don't collude) and to most intents and purposes the subs received (or passed on) are virtually irrelevant.
I ran a consultancy business and would gather whatever info available to sell on but very rarely gave anything away without being paid for it.
As the saying goes to gather it is clever to steal it is genius.
The question for both of the main protagonists is do you get value for money from AHDB? Both have stated their opposing views. In the case of @Highland Mule he reckons he does and assumes possibly correctly that the majority of similar producers think likewise.
In the case of @White rabbit he and a very large majority of the main payers we find now due to his stirring the sh~t can get little or Zero value.
He is absolutely correct to question what he is paying for.
If my clients didn't think I was providing them with value for money I would have been binned. 5 Year 5t/ha Osr averages with a top farm yield of 8.1t/ha and two years with 6t/ha averages meant they thought I might have been worth keeping. AHDB have done zero for @White rabbit and his co-producers and all he wants to do is get rid of them. What's the problem for @Highland Mule it's a totally different sector.
If the products I sell now against 1 Leatherjackets and 2 Slugs and anecdotally CSFB didn't work then would I be supplying similar clients to @White rabbit by the pallet at £10k a shot.

 

[White rabbit]

FFS
White rabbit has a farm to run
Unlike adhb

I would prefer if we could skip the personal insults and cut to the quick. It is fairly obvious that both WR and HM will never agree. It is only recently that HM has made it very clear his view is diametrically opposed to WR and that he hopes he fails in his ballot. You are producing livestock and he is producing Veg. Not even apples and pears it's so far apart its Venus and Mars.
In the livestock industry and to a greater extent arable you share info for your mutual benefit because you all receive a large amount of sub relative to your turnover and the price is set by either a national, european or world price.
In the Veg industry your fellow producer is your competition with the price set by Tesco et al, (of course they don't collude) and to most intents and purposes the subs received (or passed on) are virtually irrelevant.
I ran a consultancy business and would gather whatever info available to sell on but very rarely gave anything away without being paid for it.
As the saying goes to gather it is clever to steal it is genius.
The question for both of the main protagonists is do you get value for money from AHDB? Both have stated their opposing views. In the case of @Highland Mule he reckons he does and assumes possibly correctly that the majority of similar producers think likewise.
In the case of @White rabbit he and a very large majority of the main payers we find now due to his stirring the sh~t can get little or Zero value.
He is absolutely correct to question what he is paying for.
If my clients didn't think I was providing them with value for money I would have been binned. 5 Year 5t/ha Osr averages with a top farm yield of 8.1t/ha and two years with 6t/ha averages meant they thought I might have been worth keeping. AHDB have done zero for @White rabbit and his co-producers and all he wants to do is get rid of them. What's the problem for @Highland Mule it's a totally different sector.
If the products I sell now against 1 Leatherjackets and 2 Slugs and anecdotally CSFB didn't work then would I be supplying similar clients to @White rabbit by the pallet at £10k a shot.
[/QUOTE can't argue with that breakthru

 

[Goweresque]

FFS
White rabbit has a farm to run
Unlike adhb

How long does it take to phone 25 people (there's 3 people heading his campaign, so 25 each would get them over the levy trigger threshold) ) and ask them to write to the AHDB requesting a levy ballot?

Apart from which once they actually decided it might make more sense to trigger a statutory ballot, it happened quite quickly, less than a month judging by White Rabbits posts on here.

 

[White rabbit]

How long does it take to phone 25 people (there's 3 people heading his campaign, so 25 each would get them over the levy trigger threshold) ) and ask them to write to the AHDB requesting a levy ballot?

Apart from which once they actually decided it might make more sense to trigger a statutory ballot, it happened quite quickly, less than a month judging by White Rabbits posts on here.
[/They decided that a ballot is not going to happen quickly ,they are putting out a lot of press releases running up to Christmas,next year they will hold a ballot they hold all the cards and we have no way of changing it.The best thing we did was hold our own ballot to gauge opinions,just look how they have come out with a raft of changes on the back of it ,and no it was nothing to do with 1 in 200 from the review,one thing I find strange is the review was across all sectors and yet the response was so poor why did the arable and livestock sectors not come out in support of the ahdb.

 

[White rabbit]

The new ground rules are anybody who has only paid a part of their levy will not be allowed a vote ,in the present climate this runs to several hundred,I understand the bedding plant growers have taken a real hit.Then we have of course the ones sitting on the fence they will be assumed to want the levy to continue. I hope you chaps who wanted us to call an official ballot a while back now realise the task we face, we have a mountain and a half to climb ,I think most of us know the quote from lord acton which is quite apt for this disgraceful organisation.

 

[tepapa]

The new ground rules are anybody who has only paid a part of their levy will not be allowed a vote ,in the present climate this runs to several hundred,I understand the bedding plant growers have taken a real hit.Then we have of course the ones sitting on the fence they will be assumed to want the levy to continue. I hope you chaps who wanted us to call an official ballot a while back now realise the task we face, we have a mountain and a half to climb ,I think most of us know the quote from lord acton which is quite apt for this disgraceful organisation.

That sounds like discrimination or blackmail how do they get around that legally.

 

[glasshouse]

The new ground rules are anybody who has only paid a part of their levy will not be allowed a vote ,in the present climate this runs to several hundred,I understand the bedding plant growers have taken a real hit.Then we have of course the ones sitting on the fence they will be assumed to want the levy to continue. I hope you chaps who wanted us to call an official ballot a while back now realise the task we face, we have a mountain and a half to climb ,I think most of us know the quote from lord acton which is quite apt for this disgraceful organisation.

The establishment fixes the rules to suit themselves

 

[Highland Mule]

The new ground rules are anybody who has only paid a part of their levy will not be allowed a vote

That's one for your law people to get into then. The AHDB Act states that "Any person who pays horticulture levy" can vote in the ballot. It doesn't state that you have to pay all your levy.

 

[White rabbit]

That's one for your law people to get into then. The AHDB Act states that "Any person who pays horticulture levy" can vote in the ballot. It doesn't state that you have to pay all your levy.

This is clearly stated that any levy payer is entitled a vote, but even though we have them under the microscope they still trying to find any loop hole going.They have had these same growers paying tens of thousands a year for 12 years to the ahdb and 30 odd years into the hdc and yet in the first ballot ever they are denied a say through no fault of their own, we have in the last three weeks asked Ali capper and minette batters to ensure we get complete transparency, our local nfu confirmed they received the requests but up to now have not responded.

 

[Hindsight]

This is clearly stated that any levy payer is entitled a vote, but even though we have them under the microscope they still trying to find any loop hole going.They have had these same growers paying tens of thousands a year for 12 years to the ahdb and 30 odd years into the hdc and yet in the first ballot ever they are denied a say through no fault of their own, we have in the last three weeks asked Ali capper and minette batters to ensure we get complete transparency, our local nfu confirmed they received the requests but up to now have not responded.

Christ WR of course trhe AHDB and government are going to be looking for every tiny 'loophole' they can or as they would say implementing the regulations! The status qou is important, nay imperative to them. I do hope you and your mates have hired the very best lawyers as you re going to be facing some pretty hot ones on the other side. But its good fun to watch.

 

[White rabbit]

I would be interested if anyone gets a call from the people doing the telephone survey at the moment, one of my neighbours rang last night to say he had just done one and asked the chap what had been the response, this is the same question I asked the last time I was called, he had a lengthy conversation and the chap told him he had called 150 levy payers across all sectors and had no one so far wanted them to continue.Maybe if any of you are called you could ask the same question.

 

[ExAHDBstaff]

I would be interested if anyone gets a call from the people doing the telephone survey at the moment, one of my neighbours rang last night to say he had just done one and asked the chap what had been the response, this is the same question I asked the last time I was called, he had a lengthy conversation and the chap told him he had called 150 levy payers across all sectors and had no one so far wanted them to continue.Maybe if any of you are called you could ask the same question.

I'm sorry - there is absolutely no way in the world this is true. For one the Levy Payer Satisfaction Survey is conducted by an independent company, responses are confidential, only presented to AHDB in the form of aggregates etc.. Two, there isn't a question on it asking if they respondent wants the levy to continue, unless the questions have been changed this year, which they were always against doing as you couldn't track year on year unless it was the same questions. Three it is completely inconceivable that a single operative has spoken to 150 farmers in a week, and as I say the responses are confidential and anonymous, so they'd only know who they'd spoken too.

Either you, or you neighbour is telling a big old porkie pie here I'm afraid. Your post earlier in the week looked a bit dubious to me to say the least, but I had no way of knowing for certain if they were true or not - but this is a whopper!

 

[Goweresque]

Three it is completely inconceivable that a single operative has spoken to 150 farmers in a week,

Why? Its 30 per working day. 7 working hours per day, one call every 15 minutes, ish. Possibly pushing it a bit, for sure, but inconceivable? How long does the survey take? Or are you saying that AHDB operatives don't exactly work very hard?

 

[Highland Mule]

Why? Its 30 per working day. 7 working hours per day, one call every 15 minutes, ish. Possibly pushing it a bit, for sure, but inconceivable? How long does the survey take? Or are you saying that AHDB operatives don't exactly work very hard?

For one the Levy Payer Satisfaction Survey is conducted by an independent company

 

[White rabbit]

Why? Its 30 per working day. 7 working hours per day, one call every 15 minutes, ish. Possibly pushing it a bit, for sure, but inconceivable? How long does the survey take? Or are you saying that AHDB operatives don't exactly work very hard?

I'm sorry - there is absolutely no way in the world this is true. For one the Levy Payer Satisfaction Survey is conducted by an independent company, responses are confidential, only presented to AHDB in the form of aggregates etc.. Two, there isn't a question on it asking if they respondent wants the levy to continue, unless the questions have been changed this year, which they were always against doing as you couldn't track year on year unless it was the same questions. Three it is completely inconceivable that a single operative has spoken to 150 farmers in a week, and as I say the responses are confidential and anonymous, so they'd only know who they'd spoken too.

Either you, or you neighbour is telling a big old porkie pie here I'm afraid. Your post earlier in the week looked a bit dubious to me to say the least, but I had no way of knowing for certain if they were true or not - but this is a whopper!