With over 200 delegates attending, including growers, allied industry, researchers, retailers and Defra, our 2023 conference was sold out and the most well-attended in our, almost 30-year, history. Hosted at the Chesford Grange Hotel and Conference Centre in Warwickshire, it was a day replete with opportunities to network and catch-up with key contacts across the industry, and learn from experts during interactive speaker sessions, which included:
- Joe Beard and Paul Simmonds from Rijk Zwaan who presented on their work developing Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus (ToBRFV) resistance in tomato varieties and first-hand experiences of the virus across the world;
- Kantar’s Joe Shaw-Roberts shared detail on the condition of the Tomato Market and how rising prices are affecting consumer behaviour;
- An excellent overview of the activity and impact of our marketing campaign, British Tomato Fortnight, from Abi Clayton & Nyree Ambarchian at Jack & Grace Communications;
- Jon Swain, representing NFU Energy, updated us on the energy market over the last 12 months, how carbon footprinting methodology has progressed, and where we are with options for alternative sourcing of CO2 for protected cropping;
- Representing the NFU Horticulture and potatoes Board, Chairman Martin Emmett shared insights from the NFU Horticulture Growth Strategy and where the priorities and opportunities lie for horticulture in the UK
- With the recent establishment of Horticulture Crop Protection Ltd, CEO Simon Conway and crop protection scientist, Jo McTigue, described how they were looking after the crop protection and EAMU interests of the GB industry;
And finally, we had an in-depth session examining the current status of ToBRFV, one of the most significant production challenges for tomato growers over the past decade. Taking the learnings from the earlier presentations, we discussed the active research and next steps in efforts to continue to protect the industry from the virus from senior virologist Adrian Fox (Fera); work developing resistance from Martijn van Stee (Enza Zaden), a key policy and legislation update from Matthew Everatt (Defra), and a look at the personal experience of a grower managing the virus on a production site from Nick Arnst (La Serra).
The sessions wrapped with an interactive panel session, which was a key opportunity for the audience to ask questions, further interrogating how resistance really works in practice, through to whether statutory controls may be relaxed as the virus becomes endemic in some countries.
Copies of the presentations will be shared shortly on the British Tomato Growers’ Association website.