•
INTERVIEW
•
THE
VEGETABLE
FARMER •
JANUARY 2017
improve our supply to the
domestic market through
profitable and sustainable ways
of producing the crop; but also
howwe sell ourselves overseas
andwhat that means moving
forwards for the whole
industry.”
Achievements
The AHDB business plan also
highlights some impressive
achievements over the past few
years. This includes improving
knowledge transfer through a
proactive approach to
communications as well as
helping levy payers raise the
nutritional profile of their crops.
One notable achievement has
been around succession
planning for a future
generation of growers and
other job roles in the industry.
A total of 10 PhD students have
been through three fellowships
including the highly acclaimed
Next Generation programme.
“The industry has realised that
we need towork on twomain
areas: producingmore skilled
people with a background of
science; and the next
generation of leaders for this
industry whichwill take it
forward in the future. We have
been actively engagingwith the
Bright Crop programme, which
takes forward the need for a
whole range of differently
skilled people towork in our
sector and to ensure we create
a solid foundation for the
future,” he says. Bright Crop is
a scheme set up to inspire
young talent to explore a wide
choice of careers in farming and
food supply.
“We support the idea that we
need different talent in this
industry now. We need
scientists, marketing specialists,
accountants and engineers as
wemove into the next
generation of growing and
supplying potatoes. The
industry is an exciting place to
be right now but we need to
tell people about it if we are
going to attract the best talent
and that is one of the reasons
why AHDB has invested
significantly in a new digital
platform.”
But while needing to attract
the best new talent is a priority,
the aftermath of the
introduction of the National
LivingWage and Brexit means
so is assessing current labour
costs. “That is obviously where
automationwill play a crucial
role in the future,” says Mr
Clayton. “For a long time the
sector has been reliant on
seasonal workers and grading
staff but I think there are some
very good examples now from
growers that illustrate how the
combination of introducing
automation, intelligent systems
and optical sorting alongside
improving growing techniques
and agronomy will start to save
on the need for a certain
amount of labour in some
businesses.”
Benchmarking
“It is also time in the industry
to have a serious re-appraisal of
the role of benchmarking,” says
Mr Clayton. “Shortly, we are
about to launch a new system
to help businesses. Farm Bench
will convert the sector away
from benchmarking using
conventional excel based
solutions to an industry-wide,
cross-sector platform engine
which factors in detailed
analysis of business costs to
enable us to be in a position to
properly assess how different
businesses compare. This will
meanwe can have lots of
joined-up conversations about
demonstrating real best practice
in the industry as well as use
data to improve our approach
on somany different levels.”
AHDB Potatoes is making
good use of its Strategic Potato
FarmNetwork whichwas set up
to drive knowledge transfer and
share best practice andMr
Clayton hopes the industry can
build on that in the future. “We
hope that the work we have
done over the last few years has
helped growers and other
stakeholders in the industry
develop, move forwardwith
their business and have a voice
that is heard.”
Research
Mr Clayton also says that
research is andwill remain a
hot topic among levy payers as
well. But if he had £1million to
kick-start a new research project
where would he invest it?
“There are somany priorities. I
would definitely invest some of
it to help look for a lot more
credible, spokespeople to
represent British farming. Some
of it would be used to access
greater funding schemes for the
industry such as BDSRC fund
and Global Grant Challenge
Fund to help support industry
and drive further research. But
there are still other challenges
as well such as Potato Cyst
Nematode which is still a threat
especially given the vulnerable
crop protection situationwe
have. We need further work to
improve storage as well and
also it is important we retain
our excellent UK plant heath
status because it offers somany
opportunities both here and
overseas.”
Communications
Communications has also
been highlighted in the
business plan as an area for
continued improvement. “We
aim to enhance communication
channels and activity to ensure
knowledge is accessible,
targeted, relevant and impactful
for levy payers, and tomake
sure that the levy-base and
stakeholders are fully aware of
technical events and advisory
products,” says the business
plan.
AHDB Potatoes intends to
‘drive numbers’ to knowledge
exchange days and ensure that
AHDBmessages reach the wider
industry. “For stakeholders, we
will continue to focus on
agreed core territories and
provide updates against horizon
scanning. We will have a
communicationmechanism that
enables the often disparate
potato industry to deliver
cohesivemessages. This will
focus on key marketing
campaigns and, when relevant,
support collateral will be
provided for levy payers to use,”
it continues.
There seems to be no
stoppingMr Clayton and the
ADHB Potatoes team to help
deliver a profitable and
sustainable future for potato
growers. But they are doing so
while ensuring levy payers not
only get value for money but
get the support they need to
help take their businesses into
the next century. The Industrial
Revolution dates back nearly
200 years, but what might the
potato industry look like in
another 200? It is a difficult
question to answer but the
foundations are being laid
now.
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