The Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has won a grant worth £490,000 from the Regional Development Programme for England (RDPE) to help knowledge transfer of advanced technical skills for growers and farmers.

This additional investment is made under the new skills framework funding of the RDPE, which is jointly funded by DEFRA and the European Union. Supplemented by industry match funding, the grant to AHDB makes possible a cash injection of over £700,000 for new skills training in crops.

The grant, the fourth recent AHDB success under RDPE, is to promote a greater amount of knowledge transfer of advanced technical skills in crops, including horticulture and tree fruit. It will fund 25,000 hours of training for more than 2,000 farmers and growers across England, from January 2013 to March 2014. With industry match funding, this brings the total amount secured by AHDB to boost knowledge transfer to farmers under the current RDPE programme to £2.2m.

Focusing on potato, horticultural, arable and oilseed producers, training activity will be staged in those regions where the specific crops are farmed. The training programme will be kept flexible to respond quickly to industry demand.

Around a third of the training, which will be directed at agronomists and professional advisers as well as farmers and growers, will be delivered by AHDB knowledge transfer/research and development teams from its potato and horticulture divisions – Potato Council and HDC. The rest of the training will be provided by an AHDB network of training providers, including Adas, Duchy College, Farm Energy Centre, Smiths Gore and the Train East network.

Project leader Tess Howe, external skills development manager for AHDB, said: “This grant award is all about making additional work possible that will inspire the whole of our industry to help growers grow produce in new and better ways that are better for businesses, consumers and the environment. With increasing demands placed on resources, it’s vital farm businesses get all the latest knowledge they’re going to need to stay competitive in a global market.”