United Kingdom
September 30, 2020
The UK horticultural sector has triggered a formal ballot on the continuation of a compulsory levy for horticulture to be paid to the Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).
On Tuesday 29th September, 107 formal requests for a ballot on the Continuation of the AHDB Horticulture levy were officially handed to Ruth Ashfield, Strategy Director of AHDB Horticulture. The move is the latest development in a campaign by grass-roots growers seeking to determine the true level of support for the levy body, which they claim is unnecessary, unhelpful and damaging to their business.
A poll of almost 2,000 horticulture and potato levy payers in July showed that 92% of growers felt current AHDB policies are of no, or marginal, benefit to their business, while 80% did not want to pay a statutory levy. Since the poll AHDB has admitted that the top 50 horticultural levy payers typically pay between £50,000 and £200,000 a year to AHDB and that, overall, horticultural businesses pay a much higher levy in proportion to their business compared to other sectors of agriculture which, unlike horticulture, are grant aided under the Common Agricultural Policy and its successor.
Vegetable grower and ballot co-organiser Peter Thorold comments: “We have repeatedly tried to engage with senior representatives of our industry and politicians, but despite the fact that our ballot achieved a response rate above 33% - well above Defra’s own call for views – there has been little recognition of the depth of feeling that exists among growers towards this outdated and undemocratic tax on their businesses.
“Over the last six months AHDB have repeatedly said that if growers feel strongly enough about the levy, they should use the existing legal procedures to trigger a formal ballot on the continuation of a compulsory levy, so with the mandate that we received from our survey, that is what we have now done. We fully expect a fairly conducted AHDB ballot to endorse our findings.”
The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board Order 2008 requires AHDB to hold a ballot on whether an individual levy should continue if it receives requests to hold a ballot on that levy signed by at least 5% of those entitled to vote in such a ballot, within a period of three consecutive calendar months.
According to AHDB the 5% cent threshold for horticulture equated to just 67 levy-paying grower businesses in 2018. As well as the 107 requests already delivered, further forms are still being received by the Petitioners and these will be forwarded to AHDB, but with more than 110 completed requests so far, there have been almost twice the number required, showing the strength of feeling about the levy in industry.
Under the rules of its establishment, AHDB is now required to organise a formal independent ballot of all horticultural levy payers on whether the statutory levy should continue, which will be independently verified and communicated to Ministers within Defra, however, Ministers are not bound by the results of any such ballot.
Flower grower and ballot co-organiser Simon Redden added: “We think it is disingenuous and arrogant of the AHDB to use existing levy money to pay for a last-ditch PR campaign ahead of the ballot while denying us access to the electoral roll. However, yesterday’s self-promoting press release from Ruth Ashfield suggests this is exactly what they are already attempting to do. Her claim that ‘most horticultural businesses… do value the essential grower-led research programmes,’ is completely contrary to our findings in July when 92% of growers said current AHDB policies are of no, or marginal, benefit to their business.
“Even though there is no legal requirement to bind ministers to the result of this formal ballot, it is inconceivable that the government would act in an undemocratic manner against the wishes of the most commercially exposed sector of British farming.”
BACKGROUND
- The requests for a ballot on the continuation of the Horticulture Levy were presented flower grower Simon Redden and vegetable and potato producers Peter Thorold and John Bratley. They want to make the voices of growers heard and believe that the AHDB is a quango whose structure is based on an outdated system which taxes growers but is unaccountable to them, and which has given little (if any) value for money ever since its inception. The growers are all based in South Lincolnshire and collectively grow potatoes, vegetables and flowers across 2,025 ha (5,000 acres) of land, and 5.6 ha (14 acres) of glasshouses; together they employ c. 250 personnel and have a combined turnover of £20 million.
- Their ballot of growers in July 2020 received 661 responses from 1,967 surveys. The key findings showed that:
- 92% of growers say current AHDB policies are of no, or marginal, benefit to their business
- 80% of growers in the horticulture and potato sectors do not want to pay a statutory levy, although 57% would be prepared to support a voluntary levy scheme if applicable to their business
- 92% of respondents want an immediate ballot on the funding of the AHDB by statutory levy
- 88% of respondents were not consulted by their representative organisations as part of the previous Defra call for views on the AHDB. This includes 74% of respondents who are members of the National Farmers Union (NFU).
- 70% of growers conduct their own research and development activity in order to remain competitive in the marketplace, something which questions the relevance of AHDB’s R&D role in modern horticulture
- 89% of respondents believe that the AHDB’s performance should be independently audited annually and the report published in full
- 81% believe it is wrong to discriminate against commercial growers by making them file an annual return when other famer sectors do not have to do so
- 79% of respondents believe that the failure to file an annual return should cease to be a criminal offence
- 73% of growers think that no levy should be paid on the first £125,000 of turnover
- In this year when growers are particularly hard-pressed, 85% of respondents believe the levy should be halved for this exceptional year, with the shortfall funded from existing AHDB reserves.
- Defra’s call for views on AHDB took place over ten weeks in 2018 and received 684 responses from farmers, producers and growers. Of these 21 per cent came from the horticultural sector and 11 per cent from the potato sector.
- Defra’s final report noted that the ‘conclusions are uncertain’, and argues that ‘it is important to keep in mind that public consultations are not necessarily representative of the wider population’ and that the responses ‘cannot be assumed to relate numerically back to the number of people and organisations.’
- Despite these caveats, AHDB Chair of Horticulture Hayley Campbell-Gibbons asserted there had ‘been a healthy level of response, especially from growers, to the government's open review of AHDB.’ In response to the grower’s petition in July, she added: “A ballot has never been denied. On the contrary, there is already an open and robust mechanism to trigger a ballot in UK legislation.” The industry has now triggered this ballot.
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