Who thinks the AHDB is well run and provides value to their business?

Who thinks the AHDB is well run and provides value to their business?

  • Yes

    Votes: 23 15.4%
  • No

    Votes: 126 84.6%

  • Total voters
    149

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
As above. Interested to see the answer to the above simple question. I think the current consultation is merely tinkering at the edges. I can only speak for cereal farmers but interested in responses from all farmers to get a sense of feeling as it seemed other sectors were disappointed with the consultation.
As a cereal farmer I want them to set up a simple, free "tickbox" grain passport rival to Red Tractor and to try and do more to save/reregister essential, safe agchems, such as CTL. Most of what they do is in no way useful to my business. The recommended list is in desperate need of reform and there is a lot they could learn from the PGRO and BBRO who are also levy based organisations but much more help to the farmer. I don't want to see AHDB cereals abolished at this time as I think they have a lot of potential for good but unless there is serious improvement and soon, I will reluctantly back that motion.
Feel free to add any thoughts of your own. Who knows, someone at that organisation might read it? perhaps the head of engagement?!?!?
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
Marketing/promotion is AHDB's remit, so the self written industry rules on grain assurance requirements must be a common set of rules. It mustn't be one set of arduous rules for UK farmers, but less pages in the rule book for imports. This is a RED LINE. Failure to fix this is would mean I would vote to disband AHDB.

The above issue should not have needed to have been highlighted by a bunch of straw chewers. AHDB board members and employees should have noticed. If they failed to notice that gaping hole, then what else haven't they noticed or bad decisions have they made? It's a shocker. Employees and board members come and go and NON OF THEM realised.

Nearly 15 months has past and currently no news, although I'm hopeful something is happening in meeting rooms.

Apart from the above, RL is OK but imagine there's room for improvement.

Pest and disease threshold and predictions are very useful.

I've never been to a monitor farm meeting, but that's my fault rather than AHDB's. I've been keener to attend recently, and now COVID is a little less problematic I will attend soon.

I didn't use the free advice under the, what was it, Farm Resilience Fund? Again not AHDB's fault, they offered consultations, but I couldn't see what they could tell me, so didn't waste my time. Maybe that was silly on my part. All AHDB could do was offer help. The consultant could probably have condensed the outcomes of Monitor Farm learnings to me in 50 mins, so that would have been useful. So I'll score AHDB well for that one.

As the OP says, more funds for saving actives might be good if there was reasonable hope of achieving success. If the thinking is it wouldn't help, then fair enough don't unnecessarily waste cash on it.

Recent survey/consultation was a bit disappointing. Just seemed to give the general areas of expenditure and ask if we wanted spending in those areas to increase or decrease. I'd have liked opportunity to say if we thought overall levy rate should increase or decrease...

So their conclusion is going to be less spending on X, more spending on Y. That's what our levy payers wanted. NO, it might not be what your levy payers wanted, it's just those were the only options given. I know surveys are difficult to do to get meaningful data, but I thought this one was underwhelming in its structure and the data it could generate. Survey usefulness rating 1/5.

Conclusion.

OK, but room for improvement. My red line is just that, a red line. Failure with that issue, and AHDB are failing me as a grower. Fix the issue and I'll back AHDB to survive and evolve.
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
For cereals and Oilseeds I would like to see RL data for really, really light land. Anyone can grow any variety on good land, but most varieties can't survive the Winter on sand. So more work there please.

Most of my fields have at least one sandy patch in them. If I can choose varieties which will grow on those patches, then it will drag up my field average yield.
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
For cereals and Oilseeds I would like to see RL data for really, really light land. Anyone can grow any variety on good land, but most varieties can't survive the Winter on sand. So more work there please.

Most of my fields have at least one sandy patch in them. If I can choose varieties which will grow on those patches, then it will drag up my field average yield.
Let’s not go down a RL wormhole but it would be a good start if new varieties were actually an improvement on what’s been before…..
Sugar beet is the only crop in the U.K. to have seen significant increase in yields in the past few decades and part of that is due to good research and dissemination of that research by the bbro. The bbro really do engage with growers and ahdb could do well to learn a little from them.
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
I've just posted the below on a DM, but thought it relevant to this thread (it's grain imports level playing field related, no surprise there!!)...

How anyone on an AHDB salary could have let this issue go unnoticed is beyond me. We all knew it was happening, and a little digging from farmers soon identified the problem. We're supposed to be farming, whilst our paid levy board are supposed to be doing this work for us.

We know why they've all kicked their heels. Cash.

They'll lose RT membership numbers, income, and control. They'll lose control of the the thing they've controlled...farmers. We could he forgiven for thinking the farm assurance industry is not working as a true free market, with the decision to join being at the free will of farmers. We know these things get decided in meeting rooms, by the organisations who benefit from their own rules. RT don't put NRoSO in their rules by accident, NRoSO ask them to make it a requirement? AIC make FA a requirement to supply grain to a feed mill. Result...farmers have to be in NRoSO and farm assured.

No RT, then NRoSO and the VI also fail. So then NFU look daft for backing it.

The more one thinks about it, the more it becomes apparent NFU want to keep their members shackled to RT, whilst knowing imports don't have those assurance costs. It's dire isn't it. If that's the policy of the farming Union, then words fail me.

Does Minette Batters ever even mention this issue. No. Not a whisper. Why? It's too embarrassing, they've got no logical answers. They can't stand in a room of farmers and explain their backing of RT whilst they know full well the same is not required of imports.

Apologies, I sort of went off on one :mad:
 
Location
East Mids
For cereals and Oilseeds I would like to see RL data for really, really light land. Anyone can grow any variety on good land, but most varieties can't survive the Winter on sand. So more work there please.

Most of my fields have at least one sandy patch in them. If I can choose varieties which will grow on those patches, then it will drag up my field average yield.
Once upon a time there was an organisation that had demo / research farms across all the major soil types and farming systems across England and Wales... Perfect for such work, the sandland farm was Gleadthorpe in N Notts.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Once upon a time there was an organisation that had demo / research farms across all the major soil types and farming systems across England and Wales... Perfect for such work, the sandland farm was Gleadthorpe in N Notts.

Yes, and they were privatised and all that good work was thrown away. The same would happen if AHDB went to a voluntary levy system.
 

Is the NEC a better venue for LAMMA?

  • Yes

  • No


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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,035
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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