AHDB celebrates successful year

- Published: 16 July, 2009

The Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board has had a successful year, delivering £3.8m of savings, according to chairman John Bridge, who also called for greater co-operation with government.

Speaking at the annual AHDB barbecue at Westminster last night, Bridge said the organisation had met the challenges it faced very effectively and completed all programmes successfully.

The move to Stoneleigh was now almost complete and would bring all the sector bodies, including EBLEX and BPEX, under one roof for the first time.

“We will deliver £3.8m of savings this year. It’s what we were asked to do, and we did it in challenging circumstances.”

He said the AHDB needed to have a strong commitment to research and development: “We neglect this at our peril; that’s why it is our largest area of spend.” But he added it was important to ensure that knowledge was transferred down into the industry.

He also called for greater co-operation: “Feeding Britain in the future is going to be challenging, but we need a level of collaboration across industry, government and consumer sectors, which does not exist at this date.

“We’re prepared to face up to this challenge, I would like to think we can collaborate to produce solutions that everybody wants.”