A full year before other NFU boards came into being, the NFU horticulture board set the standards for others to follow.
The board comprises 11 members, representing horticulture throughout England and Wales, with two of the members representing potatoes. Unique to the board for horticulture, individuals are appointed on the basis of a nomination supported by twenty NFU members who are also the nominees’ peers.
The board elects a chairman to be the voice of horticulture, and in March 2005, Richard Hirst, a vining pea grower from Norfolk, was elected chairman, taking over from Graham Ward who had piloted the board since its inception in 2003.
The diversity of horticulture means that the approach of the board to issues is from a horizontal perspective - not sector specific. A number of issues will apply to most sectors of horticulture to a greater or lesser extent and that is the approach taken by the board when establishing policy - its central function.
Members are given individual responsibility for certain areas (e.g. plant health, crop protection, energy, peat) and they are expected to drive forward the issues in these areas in between board meetings.
The board has a number of key priorities for 2006, not least of which is employment, which this year will focus on the NFU negotiating a positive outcome for horticulture with the AWB, lobbying for continuation of the SAWS and keeping the industry informed on the requirements under the gangmaster licensing legislation.
Last year’s AWB settlement was a welcome success for horticulture and for the NFU’s negotiating team, but this year’s negotiations are likely to be even tougher. On gangmasters - it is vital that growers are aware of what their responsibilities are and to ensure that the new system works as efficiently as possible.
The board has a number of other key priorities, which will be the focus of activities over the coming months;
• Energy - the NFU’s climate change agreement for protected horticulture is now up and running and set to save the industry £2 million per year until 2013. Building on this success, the board will be investigating other opportunities to reduce the ever-escalating burden of energy costs.
• Polytunnels - the board is working closely with industry representatives, including the British Summer Fruits Association, to produce better policy planning guidance for growers; a step-by-step guide for growers; a reviewed polytunnel code of practice; and to promote the use of polytunnels to a wider audience.
• Plant health - an issue of major importance to the work of the board, with the case of ring rot in Wales putting the exposure of growers to this risk into stark focus. The board is developing its policy and is working on a project looking into the risk-based approaches to managing plant health threats to the UK. The outputs from the project will help to drive this agenda forward.
• Supply chain relationships - the board will continue its ongoing programme of meeting retailers to establish better relationships. This includes all of the major retailers and will apply to all parts of the horticultural offer into retailers covering both edibles and non-edibles. We have already held meetings with Tesco, Asda and Morrisons, and held discussions with B&Q.
This year the board also aims to produce detailed statistical data for representative sectors of British horticulture, which will lead in to the development of a vision document for the industry.
Ultimately, grower members of the NFU will measure the success of the horticulture board by the results it achieves. Board members are focused on achieving those results for the benefit of all growers’ businesses - and need your input to do it.
HIRST HAS THIRST FOR ACTION
The new NFU president, Peter Kendall, has already highlighted the fact that other sectors of UK food production would do well to follow the lead that horticulture has already taken in its relationship with its customers. However, all is not rosy with the horticultural supply base and we cannot take for granted that consumers want to buy our products just because they are grown in the UK.
We all have a responsibility to champion why UK produce should be at the forefront of every buyer’s mind, whether it is because of our enhanced production standards, the need for growing businesses to protect and enhance the countryside we live in, and increasingly the concern that our reliance on more and more imports jeopardises long-term food security.
The UK grower, more than ever, needs to be able to increase his share of the total revenue of food sales otherwise there will be a rapid and terminal decrease in food production units in the UK. The opportunities for other outlets for our land production, particularly in the energy sector, may provide an easier and less challenging market in the future, and this could be at the expense of food production. If we lose the critical mass of production then processing facilities also suffer, the impact of which for reliable supply will be serious.
These factors are further compounded by issues of long-term availability of water and climate change and as a result the impacts may not be many years away. Unless the long term profitability of the grower base can be guaranteed, investments in infrastructure which are needed now will not happen.
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