The official turnouts of the ballots on statutory levies for horticulture and potatoes were closer to 78% and 73% respectively, suggesting that the level of discontent with the levy among growers is even greater than officially recognized, based on a statement recently released by the AHDB Petitioners group.

According to the document, UK’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has been urged to respect the results of the official ballots on statutory levies for horticulture and potatoes as its consultation on reforming the AHDB Order 2008 came to an end.

“Ministers say that the consultation, which closed on January 10, is necessary to allow them to proceed with the proposed changes to the statutory instrument, which currently imposes a levy on agriculture and horticulture – including proposals to remove the levy on horticulture and potatoes. However, campaigners against the levy have expressed concerns that the consultation could be used to overturn the clear result of the previous statutory vote to abolish the levies, the results of which were announced early last year,” the statement added.

Lincolnshire vegetable and potato grower, John Bratley, who helped trigger the formal ballot, mentioned that the two ballots had participation rates of 66% of eligible levy payers for horticulture and 64% for potatoes.

He added that this latest consultation exercise has been ‘equally badly organized and poorly promoted’ as the last time DEFRA conducted its consultation on AHDB in 2018 when it obtained only a 0.5% response from the industry. In Bratley’s opinion, there is a danger that ‘a vocal minority of growers who support some form of compulsory levy could influence the result’.

“It is, therefore, crucial that DEFRA respects the result of the ballot, which was organized under the existing statutory instrument, and scrap the statutory levy for horticulture and potatoes,” Bratley declared.

Lincolnshire vegetable farmer Peter Thorold went further and said that more than 480 horticultural growers and more than 790 potato levy payers vote to abolish the statutory levy and do away with AHDB ‘which provided them with little benefit in return for the vast sums of money being collected’.

“Based on previous experience, the DEFRA consultation is unlikely to attract more than a handful of responses, and so these mustn’t be allowed to overturn such a clear mandate to abolish the levy. Also, previous submissions by the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) have cast doubt on their ability to accurately reflect the views of the majority of their grower members in such a consultation,” Thorold said.

The AHDB Petitioners, as they have become known, welcome the overall process and the chance to reform horticultural R&D in the United Kingdom.

“They welcome targeted R&D, and recognize it as essential to their businesses, but do not wish to be patronized, or to support their direct competitors, both of which have occurred with direct levy-based systems,” the press release writer concluded.

On November 17, 2021, the UK Government has opened a consultation on proposals for legislative reforms to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board Order 2008 (the AHDB Statutory Instrument).

The proposed changes seek to establish the legislative foundations for a reformed AHDB and sit alongside improvements already underway to the structure and governance of AHDB to deliver a more efficient and focused organization giving value for money and greater accountability to levy payers in the future.

The consultation proposals take forward the recommendations from the Request for Views and respond to the outcome of the recent ballots in the horticulture and potato sectors.