SIR, – The AHDB has just published a horizon document on trade, as part of a series which looks at the implications for trade, the opportunities and threats, particularly the tariff structures currently in place.

I would recommend them as reading to anyone. They are freely available on the AHDB website.

Whilst we do not and will not, for many years know the detail surrounding how we will trade in the future, we do know the direction. We also know that this will, as usual with all trade deals, finish off with the main protagonists and the Prime Minister behind closed doors at the midnight hour, with parties looking to make the best of their position.

So, with financial services, banking, insurance and the legal world critical to the UK economy, agriculture will come well down the list of priorities and certainly one that will look from many non-EU countries, as an opportunity for greater free trade access.

At the recent AHDB Grain Outlook conference, I raised the perspective that we have in farming, two years effectively ‘get fit quick’. We are fortunate to have government support maintained until 2020, but our entry into a brave new marketing place will come far sooner.

Many younger people see it as an opportunity – their chance, to use their skills in building better farming businesses. They are capable of using the latest management, cost control, budgeting, marketing, national and international benchmarking tools, with the ability to work in different ways, often in new partnerships.

All of this will breath new energy into farming.

Large parts of the supply chain either side of farming has changed dramatically and now it is the turn of farming. We have the benefit of two years and as I have seen on so many occasions, this is more about a realistic positive attitude and open mind than the age of those involved.

The AHDB will look to help the levy payers wherever it can, guided by industry requirement and working as one organisation and bringing with it unique independence. I believe UK farming is capable of change, meeting supply chain needs and at the same time delivering sustainability.

We simply have no other option but to ‘get fit quick’. It will be worth it.

Paul Temple

AHDB Board member and sector chairman AHDB Cereals and Oilseeds