The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has published a report on the ‘Activity Review’ it undertook last autumn/winter to listen to levy payers’ views on challenges facing their businesses and priorities for AHDB activity. AHDB staff held 15 open levy payer meetings around Britain with more than 300 attendees and also collected 670 survey forms.
Tom Hind, AHDB’s Chief Strategy Officer, said, “The aim of the activity review was to get a root and branch perspective from farmers, growers, processers and key stakeholders on the key challenges and opportunities they face as well as the areas where they feel AHDB can make the biggest impact on their businesses. Above all this was a listening exercise and we are extremely grateful to all those who took the time to participate. It’s little surprise that low profitability and volatility come through as two key challenges facing businesses.
“Levy payers want AHDB to do more to help producers cope better with global market volatility, develop the brand reputation of British food at home and overseas, and grow the market. They also want us to communicate better with them and more clearly demonstrate the value of AHDB work to levy payers. The report brings together the key findings. What matters now is how AHDB and its sector boards respond to the challenges identified by levy payers. We’re making some changes already – strengthening our evaluation, reviewing our communications, improving our digital capability and adjusting our sector plans. Through the coming months our Boards will be reviewing their strategies to ensure they are focused on making the biggest difference for levy payers in each sector”.