The Future of Research and Development in UK Horticulture

There is a debate going on in the world of Horticulture about how and even if we should continue to work and pay together to do the research and development to take our industry forward.

Currently there is a statutory levy of about 0.5% of the value added to our horticultural output collected by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. (AHDB). In our case this means daffodils, celeriac, fennel, onions, peas and squash. Our other crops such as wheat, sugar beet and potatoes are classed as Agriculture and work on those is funded in different ways.  With these funds AHDB contract research and trials all over the UK attempting to solve problems presented by new and old pests and diseases, trial new techniques and varieties and offer growers energy and cost saving methods to increase efficiency.

We have benefitted enormously from the work that AHDB has done although it has to be said that much of the work done has been necessary to find replacements for crop protection products withdrawn by regulation or not supported by the manufacturers for our small acreage crops rather than doing development research. The list of approved crop protection products diminishes most years, challenging the industry to find new ways of managing crops that use less chemical solutions and where chemicals are used, to be closer targeted and less persistent. This is also what our customers want, of course and we are very happy with it as long as imported competition is grown to the same standards.

However, many horticultural businesses operate on very small margins in a very competitive market dominated by a few large purchasers and finding close to a half a per cent of turnover is hard.

AHDB is responding by examining all its costs, structures and the way the levy is uniformly collected which is, of course a good thing but the proposal to narrow the focus and vary the levy across different crops and to where work is being done will no doubt be more complicated and at times contentious. It will still require cooperation between growers and cooperation is not something that British farmers are traditionally good at. Our major competitors in Holland take a different view and cooperation has been the keystone of their success in dominating many of the horticultural markets in Europe.

There will be a ballot of levy paying growers in January and virtual meetings in between to express views. Our view is that AHDB is a great asset to the industry and if we turn our back on cooperation and self help it is very unlikely that the government will take up the slack. An industry that fails to research is certain to stagnate and decline.