New Chair of Home-Grown Cereals Authority

John Page is the new chair of the Home-Grown Cereals Authority (HGCA). He takes up the £25,203-a-year, one-and-a-half days per week post from 3 June for three years.

John Page is a former Director General of the British Agrochemicals Association (now the Crop Protection Association), and was agricultural director of Barclays Bank from 1994-2000. For three years until 2003 he was executive director of Ten Sixty Six Enterprise Ltd, a development partnership between local authorities and business, and since 2002 has chaired the finance committee of Farming and Wildlife Advisory Groups Ltd (of which he has been a Trustee since 1994) as well as being Treasurer of the Oxford Farming

Conference since 1999.

Food and Farming Minister Larry Whitty said:

"I am confident that, with his broad experience, John Page will build on the excellent work carried out over the last six years by Antony Pike. The HGCA plays an important role supporting our cereals and oilseeds industries and I wish John every success."