Request for Views on the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board

Overview

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) is a UK statutory levy body, funded by farmers, growers and others in the supply chain. It delivers some important services to various industry sectors and parts of the UK.

We are seeking your views to help us examine the continuing need for AHDB and the statutory levy, and what the levy board should deliver. We want to hear views from levy payers and non-levy payers in the UK.

The request for views is open for 10 weeks until the 9th November 2018. We will consider all responses received before midnight on 9th November. A summary of responses will be produced early in 2019.

Please give your views online using the link at the bottom of this screen.

If you are unable to respond online, then please see the related links below to print a copy of the survey (PDF), or if you prefer to use a response form (available in OpenDocument format). The documents are available in English and in Welsh and contain the postal address for returning your response if required.

Or you can request a copy of the survey by emailing ViewsonAHDB@defra.gsi.gov.uk.

Please send queries or requests for a more accessible format of the survey to ViewsonAHDB@defra.gsi.gov.uk indicating the format you require, and the assistive technology that you use.

Why your views matter

AHDB has existed for ten years during which time the industry and the wider world have undergone some significant changes, and AHDB has become a more joined-up, strategic and efficient body. Change is set to continue.

Earlier this year in England a consultation paper 'Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit' set out a range of possible paths to a brighter future for English farming.  Scotland has recently published its 'Future Strategy for Scottish Agriculture' and launched a public consultation 'Stability and Simplicity: Proposals for Rural Funding Transition'.  On 10^th July the Welsh Government launched its formal consultation 'Brexit and our land: Securing the future of Welsh farming'.  In Northern Ireland, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), with the co-operation and input from a broad range of stakeholders across the food, farming and environmental sectors, has developed a possible policy framework to help shape the debate on future support arrangements. That paper will form the basis of a broader engagement with stakeholders by DAERA later this year. 

Across the UK we want agriculture and horticulture to flourish as competitive, highly skilled, high investment industries. 

What happens next

We will consider all responses received before 9th November and will produce a summary of responses early in 2019.