Regional Development Agencies will be scrapped as part of the government’s swingeing economic cuts, the coalition confirmed last week, putting vital research and business development in jeopardy.
Nine agencies, including Advantage West Midlands, Yorkshire Forward and the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), now face closure. They are to be replaced by Local Enterprise Partnerships in a process that will begin with a white paper to be published later this summer.
Henriette Reinders, managing director of the South East Food Group Partnership, which was 60 per cent funded by SEEDA until last year, said: “From next month, there will be no funding for horticulture from the government in our region.
“We have always had support from government in the past and SEEDA has been our major funder for the last six years.
“The problem is that people regard the South East as a centre for technology but we have a huge rural business population. Businesses will be expected to work towards the Food 2030 strategy but it is unclear if there will be any funding attached.”
One agency claimed the decision would seriously hamper development while another source said a lack of co-ordination between the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and DEFRA had meant the previous government had little hope of achieving its goal of increasing food production.
Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said the nine agencies cost the taxpayer a combined £1.5 billion and employed 3,400 people.
It is expected that the government will rework Labour’s Food 2030 strategy, released in January 2010. A source close to government said one minister dubbed the strategy “high on rhetoric but low in facts”.
NFU South East director William White said: “BIS and DEFRA should have recognised that a joined-up approach between rural funding and agriculture was needed to increase food production. As it is, rural was bottom of BIS’s list and its rural department all but scrapped.
“The most negative thing you can do is cut a programme halfway through. Why not let the Rural Development Programme run its course to 2013 through the RDAs?
“A regional delivery model has worked reasonably well, especially in horticulture. The NFU will work with any successor but I am worried there will be duplication from the Local Enterprise Partnerships which may end up costing more.”
Jonathan Knight, chief executive of the Regional Food Group for Yorkshire and Humber, said: “Fortunately our dependence on the RDA is reducing through income received from our fast-growing membership and by expanding the range of our commercial services. We have taken significant steps over recent months to reduce our operating costs in order to maximise the benefit to members. We are also retained by UKTI as its export specialist.”
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