LEVY-FUNDED agri-research body AHDB has proposed a new drive to inspire farmers and growers to succeed in a rapidly changing world.

Its newly-published ‘Inspiring Success’ strategy covers the years til the end of this decade, and sets out a vision of creating a "world class food and farming industry", helping lift the industry’s productivity and competitiveness in the face of global challenges – particularly post-Brexit.

Key to this are proposals to address the UK industry's 'fragmented' knowledge exchange system through a new Farm Excellence platform which focuses on having a real and direct impact on farmers and growers. It also wants a more proactive and strategic use of research funding through working more closely with Agri-Tech Centres and UK research councils.

AHDB CEO Jane King said that the organisation was uniquely placed to deliver a blend of research, knowledge exchange, skills development, market development and economic analysis across all its six levy-paying sectors: “Our new vision is of a world-class food and farming industry inspired by, and competing with the best. We have realigned all our activities with this in mind.

“To become world-class, farmers and growers need to become more productive – not just in terms of the crops grown and livestock reared, but in the way inputs such as fuel, water and labour are used," said Ms King. "There is a need to knit together the industry’s fragmented knowledge exchange landscape to deliver innovation and best practice.

"AHDB can be the lynchpin for this, positioning ourselves at the heart of all the good work going on and becoming the go-to KE organisation. We are exploring how we can work better with agronomists, vets, universities and commercial companies to improve the knowledge exchange pipeline.

“We will also be looking to create a new Farm Excellence Platform over the next three years expanding our current network of Monitor Farms, Focus Farms and Strategic Potato Farms (Spot) Farms across the country. This will put farmers and growers at the heart of innovation delivery on-farm and delivery of the right business skills.”

Helping businesses respond to consumer trends will be a key element of the new AHDB strategy, with proposals to make consumer insight work more accessible to farmers and growers. It also acknowledges that volatility is the new norm and that the industry needs to find new ways of coping with fewer chemicals and antimicrobials.

Ms King promised that AHDB would deliver more 'thought leadership' for the industry: “We have already made steps towards this with our Horizon reports on Brexit, and we will be looking to build on our international benchmarking and data collection work. This will help us provide more insight and analysis to learn from the best."

The strategy is now out for farmer, grower and industry consultation until January 9, 2017. AHDB has no current proposals to increase current levy rates. More information can be found online at http://www.ahdb.org.uk/publications/consultation.aspx