Mighty oaks from little acorns grow, as the old saying goes. However, while everyone will probably wish them well, the newly recruited team appointed to form a fresh produce task force last week by DEFRA minister Hilary Benn - while commendably drawn from all sectors of UK horticulture - faces a gargantuan and, to my mind, almost impossible task.

The brief, in the main, covers ways to grow more and ideas to increase consumption, while at the same time creating a framework under which consumers will be attracted to buying more UK-grown fruit and vegetables.

Such concepts may have their attraction for politicians, but the reality, as ever, lies in the detail. Growing more and increasing consumption have been the subject of numerous economic reports and well-meaning voluntary organisations for more years than I care to remember.

And while the intentions of the participants will undoubtedly be well meaning, the cold fact remains that the produce industry is highly competitive within its own ranks, price-sensitive to imports and, to make matters even more complex, seasonal. In this mix, buyers and sellers at best share an uneasy peace, by the very nature of their function.

I suppose that while there is life there is hope, even in a world where retail demands - and I use the term specifically - dominate and continue to shape thinking, while the rest of the trade, as a result, continues to evolve.

Wholesale markets no longer have the impact that they once enjoyed, although I am pleased to ackowledge that there are exceptions.

At the moment, retailers are totally conditioned to price to boost their individual market share, but their value packs - or whatever they are referred to as - still have to measure up, so there is little room for anything below not just the EU Class I standard, but also the criteria that most multiples adopt on top of this basic requirement.

Meanwhile, the target of increasing consumption comes at a time when, over the years, the industry and government have already invested many millions of pounds in trying to improve awareness of the country’s diet - with less success than both would like. Any further progress through this framework must take into account that supplying a country that imports the majority of its fruit and a fair proportion of its salads and vegetables must recognise the whole produce calendar, regardless of source.

The concept that the industry can solve its own problems has its appeal, but this in itself is not new. In former times, then agriculture minister Peter Walker once appointed Six Wise Men, recruited from the very top tier of the industry, whose practical knowledge was seen as a way to improve a variety of activities. These ranged from enforcing the retail disciplines at the disposal of our government’s grading inspectors to the future of the Potato Marketing Board. The stones they threw into the pond then may have rippled the surface, but it was the commercial decisions within the interwoven fabric of the marketplace that influenced the results. In this sense, it is still hard to envisage how anything radical can be achieved.