My last blog posting on the recent Andersons spring seminar focussed on how useful and interesting the session was, and how effective the key speakers were.
But three hours is a long time to concentrate when the sun is shining and it's Friday afternoon, and my mind did start to wander a bit during the paper on "Opportunities from Regulation".
Normally when this happens I resort to the list of delegates, and mark a cross by the people I recognise or want to catch a word with at the tea break.
But this time I turned to the back of the conference booklet where my eye was drawn to the "glossary of acronyms", listing many of the different acronyms commonly used in agricultural parlance. I decided to test myself.
Given my 20 years-plus in the industry, I was pretty confident I'd get most of them right...
For example, I knew full well that OELS stood for Organic Entry Level Stewardship and that EFFP was the English Food and Farming Partnership. But I have to admit that correctly identifying WPZ as a Water Protection Zone was more of a lucky guess.
Being a bit of an anorak, I also spotted that RICS was wrongly listed as the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. Actually it's "Institution".
And then there were glaring omissions from the list. Why no mention of IPPC (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) or EFSA (the European Food Safety Authority).
In the event, I got 67 right out of 100, which I thought was not too bad.
But how about the ones I got wrong? The following is a list of ten of them. See if you know what they stand for, then scroll down to first comment box for the answers.
• CTE
• EIA
• HCC
• IPU
• NAMA
• RDC
• ROC
• SPR
• WFD
• YESS
Any feedback on how you did would, of course, be welcome!
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And the answers are.....
CTW Contract Tonnage Entitlement (sugar beet)
EIA Environmental Impact Assessment
HCC Hybu Cig Cymru
IPU Integrated Production Units
NAMA Non-Agricultural Market Access
RDC Rural Development Contracts
ROC Renewable Obligation Certificate
SPR Soil Protection review
WFD Water Framework Directive
YESS Young Entrants Support Scheme
As I said, 67 out of 100 was not too bad!
AIC have developed a booklet called "Acronyms in Context" in a lighthearted attempt to steer the industry through the minefield of agricultural jargon and acronyms. I hope it helps ease the pain. At over 1,100 entries, it is far from a quick read and, I'm afraid, far from complete!
A version is also available on our website at the following address;
www.agindustries.org.uk/content.output/2318/2318/Home/Home/Acronyms%20and%20Jargon%20.mspx