JUST 24 hours after the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board released a consultation on its new five-year strategy, a second sector request was lodged for a producer ballot on its continued operation and levy gathering powers.

This time it's the potato sector, which annually draws £5.8m in producer levies, that wants change.

The call was lodged earlier this week by English growers, Simon Redden, Peter Thorold and John Bratley, who presented a petition signed by almost 200 growers. This followed a similar exercise by the horticultural sector, which will see a ballot on the board’s future in that segment take place at the end of January.

The statutory levy board, which undertakes research and development, market analysis and promotion for the various sectors of the industry, has been under considerable pressure in recent months. These petitions had followed on from a less than glowing report from a Government ‘call for views’ on the organisation’s performance which, although conducted back in 2018, wasn’t actually published until April this year.

AHDB said the latest petition would need to be validated to ensure the threshold of 103 names of businesses who had paid levy in the past 12 months had been reached before a formal ballot process was triggered

However, speaking hard on the heels of releasing the organisation’s new five-year strategy proposals, recently-installed AHDB chair, Nicholas Saphir, warned the ballot should not be viewed as a means for expressing discontent with the way levy was collected, or spent, or how AHDB operated.

“It is solely about whether AHDB will continue to deliver statutory levy-funded services and products to the potatoes sector or not," he argued.

“Lose it and we lose the ability to collectively invest in the collective challenges that lie ahead from climate change, including sprays, chemicals, IPM and zero carbon.

“Lose it and we lose the collective investment in R and D generally, storage and disease prevention. Finally, we lose collective evidence that allows decisions to be made and productivity benchmarked.”

Mr Saphir, who was appointed in April, said that discussions on the board’s activities, how much levy was collected and how it was spent, did, however, form part of newly-released consultation which he said would ensure the AHDB was 'fit for purpose' in the changing times which British agriculture was facing. He urged growers to get involved and voice their views.

He also revealed that while the requested vote would be a binary ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on whether the AHDB continued to operate in the sector in question, the ballot wouldn’t be judged on a straight majority basis – as the organisation’s status as an ‘executive non-departmental public body’ meant that any action taken as a results of the vote would be decided by Government ministers.

However, fresh from delivering the petition, Lincolnshire potato and vegetable grower John Bratley questioned the content of the new strategy:

“It looks like AHDB is short on ideas and is asking the industry what it wants it to do – all I can see is a lot of promises but no substance.”

The major objections, Bratley claimed, came from large-scale growers, who he said were highly efficient, sourced the best commercial advice and even conducted their own research trials – and who therefore got very little return on their levy payments which often ran into “tens of thousands of pounds”.

Stating that 20% of growers produced more than 80% of the total potato crop, he conceded that smaller scale growers were more likely to benefit from what he termed AHDB’s 'hand-holding approach', as were seed producers who supplied the complex export market – meaning that Scotland was more likely to support the status quo.