The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) is a levy board funded by farmers and growers and some other parts of the supply chain. It aims to enhance farm business efficiency and competitiveness in the areas of: pig, beef and lamb production in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

;

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modula ...

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...

es and

horticulture Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

; and cereals and

oilseeds Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of fruits. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed oils, or fat ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. It undertakes research and development and farm-level knowledge transfer activity, provides essential market information to improve supply chain transparency and undertakes marketing promotion activities to help stimulate demand and to develop export markets. These are activities which most individual farm businesses could not afford to do themselves.

History

It was formed on 1 April 2008, from five previous organisations which were similarly levy-funded, which were the

British Potato Council AHDB Potatoes, previously known as the Potato Council, is a trade organisation that aims to develop and promote the potato industry in Great Britain. Previously an independent non-departmental public body, it has been a division of the Agricul ...

; the Home-Grown Cereals Authority; the Horticultural Development Council; the

Meat and Livestock Commission The Meat and Livestock Commission, (MLC), was set up by the UK Government under the Agriculture Act 1967 with Government money with the remit to promote the sale of red meat. The MLC was previously an independent non-departmental public body, bu ...

; and the Milk Development Council. It was created using powers granted under the

Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 The Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 (c 16), also referred to as the NERC Act (2006), is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In a reorganisation of public bodies involved in rural policy and delivery, the measures d ...

Function

Its statutory purpose is to improve UK farm business efficiency and competitiveness. This is defined as:

(a) increasing efficiency or productivity in the industry;
(b) improving marketing in the industry;
(c) improving or developing services that the industry provides or could provide to the community; and
(d) improving the ways in which the industry contributes to sustainable development.

Structure

It is structured with six operating divisions representing the commodity sectors covered by its statutory remit: * pigs (

pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved; ...

) in England * dairy (milk) in Great Britain * beef and lamb in England * horticulture in Great Britain * cereals and oilseeds in the United Kingdom * Potato Council - potatoes in Great Britain

Funding

Farmers, growers and others in the food supply chain pay a statutory levy and in return receive services that they might not otherwise be able to afford to invest in, like research and development,

market intelligence Market intelligence (MI) is gathering and analyzing information relevant to a company's market - trends, competitor and customer (existing, lost and targeted) monitoring. It is a subtype of competitive intelligence (CI), which is data and info ...

information and trade development and marketing. The levy rate is recommended by advisory boards composed of levy payers and agreed by the AHDB Board and by UK Ministers.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Agriculture And Horticulture Development Board Organizations established in 2008 Organisations based in Warwickshire Agricultural organisations based in the United Kingdom Agricultural marketing organizations Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Non-departmental public bodies of the United Kingdom government 2008 establishments in the United Kingdom