The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has published a report on the ‘Activity Review’ it undertook last autumn and 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.
AHDB is a UK-wide Non-Departmental Public Body sponsored by Defra and primarily funded by farmers, growers and others in the supply chain through statutory levies.
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, processors 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 we’re releasing today 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."
Changes to AHDB sector plans
AHDB Dairy has announced a significant change to its business plan (2016–2019).
Funding has been made available to support market development activity to the tune of £3.5 million over three years.
This will enable AHDB to extend its export market development activities to support dairy manufacturers in exploiting market opportunities overseas.
Funding is also being made available to explore opportunities jointly with Dairy UK to promote the nutritional benefits of dairy products.
AHDB Potatoes has made changes to its business plan (2016–2019) that signal a shift towards a greater focus on farm productivity.
This will build on the initial success of the Strategic Potato Farm concept with further sites identified in Scotland and eastern England.
Reviewing communication
AHDB’s internal change programme has seen the creation of a dedicated communications team that will be reviewing all communications activities and delivery channels.
This is to ensure communications to farmers, growers, processors, key stakeholders, consumers and policymakers are relevant and targeted.
Alongside this, a review of digital and online activities aims to deliver better value for money by creating joined-up, accessible and interactive digital platforms.
Communications in Scotland will be bolstered to ensure that information is tailored to meet the needs of the audience and maximises the opportunity to communicate through the Scottish media.
Evaluation and impact assessment
AHDB is putting in place evaluation mechanisms to provide clarity on the value derived from levy-funded activity.
A more rigorous and systematic approach has started with the launch of an Investment Test for new programmes of work.
As of 1 April 2016, new programmes and projects valued over £50,000 have needed to be supported by a clear business case that demonstrates how the programme delivers economic benefits, solves a supply chain problem, improves decision-making or addresses sustainability.
Programmes will be scrutinised and scored by an AHDB panel before being recommended to boards for consideration in business plans.
At the heart of this approach is a clear focus on the outcomes that each programme seeks and how these will be monitored and evaluated.
Volatility
In order to help move the industry beyond the rhetorical debates about volatility, AHDB has created an industry-led Volatility Forum.
This brings together experts from across the food and farming industry with a remit to broaden and deepen the industry’s understanding of the causes of volatility, how resilience can be built within farming businesses and the potential tools that could be deployed to better manage its effects on businesses.
The Forum’s first piece of work will deal with future markets and will work closely with Defra to examine the potential to extend future trading beyond the cereals sector to other parts of the food and farming industry.
Strategy review
AHDB will undertake a comprehensive review of its organisational strategy during 2016 to develop, for the first time, one clear long-term corporate strategy for AHDB based on bold ambitions for the future of agriculture and horticulture.
Supported by the Sector Strategy Directors, sector boards, who are responsible for setting sector strategy, will also be fundamentally appraising their long-term strategies, setting ambitions and identifying the areas where AHDB is uniquely or best-placed to achieve these.
The emphasis will be on what the organisation does and does not do to achieve these ambitions and will concentrate on doing a few things well to deliver outcomes that improve the performance of the industry.
Alongside the development of strategies, there will be a comprehensive assessment of how work is monitored and evaluated with clear and consistent key performance indicators to assess whether outcomes are being achieved.
Sector boards will continue to play an important role in holding the organisation to account on AHDB’s performance.
