The Potato Council has unveiled its corporate plan for next year, which was put forward for consultation by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) last week.
The trade body has asked the potato industry to invest in increased spending on levy-funded activities so that it can step up key research and development, knowledge transfer and marketing exercises.
The plan reflects the decision of the Potato Council board to introduce the first increase in the levy since 2001, proposed in the 2009 corporate plan, of three per cent a year for three years.
The association will focus on five strategic objectives to improve competitiveness by better crop and business management, sustaining demand for potatoes, exploiting high-value seed markets, leveraging the importance of the potato and acting as the industry voice to meet environmental and regulatory requirements and help raise the skill base.
Potato Council chairman Allan Stevenson said: “The corporate plan takes in the outcomes of board and committee consultations and deliberations, as well as last year’s Direction Through Dialogue initiative, during which we gathered feedback from levy payers. It also takes into account the changing needs of the potato sector…
“Feedback from levy payers suggested that having regular, small, annual levy increases was the preferable approach. The three per cent increase will result in a proposed grower levy of £40.17 per hectare and a purchase levy of 17.51p per tonne.”
Stevenson stressed that for the majority of levy payers, the proposed increase amounts to less than 3p/t based on an average yield and that if the Potato Council had applied inflationary increases over the past eight years, it would be 27 per cent higher in 2010 than the figure proposed.
Stevenson said: “The formation of the AHDB and the cost savings this is starting to deliver have allowed us to propose a modest increase. The plan demonstrates high activity in key areas most needed by our industry and builds on the significant benefits we have already delivered to levy payers.”
The consultation on the corporate plan for 2010-2013 closes on January 4, 2010.
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