Opinion: Who should control farmers’ levy money?

Who should decide how the AHDB spends levy payers’ money?

That question, which has been rumbling in the background in farming circles for some time, moved centre stage this week with the resignation of Stuart Roberts, who chaired the AHDB Beef and Lamb sector board (formerly Eblex).

Roberts only took up his role in March, one of four new board members appointed through a process involving both Defra and AHDB chairman Sir Peter Kendall. He resigned citing Defra’s growing interference in the day-to-day operations of the AHDB and, in particular, how it spends its money.

Karl Schneider,
Farmers Weekly
Editor

See also: Q&A: AHDB’s chief executive promises farmers better value

The AHDB’s funds are provided almost entirely by levy-paying farmers and processors. But the answer to the question “who should control the purse strings?” is not as simple as some might think.

Despite farmers’ understandable concerns, Defra is right to insist that it should have a say in the AHDB’s spending priorities. Paying the levy is a statutory requirement.

To justify this, both legally and morally, there must be some clearly identified public good that the levy serves, and this naturally imposes constraints on how the levy monies are spent.

However, Defra should implement these constraints through a set of clear guidelines on what are and are not appropriate uses of the levy, not through micromanagement of spending decisions and sign-off of every AHDB initiative.

As long as they keep within these guidelines, levy payers, through their representatives on the AHDB sector boards, should decide how the levy is spent without having to seek Defra’s specific approval.

“There is absolutely no justification for Defra to pick the pockets of hard-pressed levy payers in this way”
Karl Schneider

Mr Roberts’ resignation was apparently triggered by Defra’s refusal to sign-off a long-planned TV marketing campaign to promote “mini-roasts”.

Defra is known to take a very dim view of levy funds being spent on generic mass advertising campaigns designed simply to persuade people to eat more meat or drink more milk.

However, the mini-roast campaign was designed to educate consumers on the use of novel meat cuts, to drive more value from a carcass. That seems to be far more justifiable.

Defra is right to say that the AHDB should focus most of its energies, and budget, on supporting and improving UK agriculture through research, promoting best practice and developing agricultural skills.

But Defra’s refusal to sign off the mini-roasts campaign is particularly insensitive during the current price crisis afflicting large sectors of agriculture, with many farmers struggling to keep their heads above water.

More worryingly, there is a growing suspicion that, faced with swingeing budget cuts, Defra is looking to tap into AHDB funds to deliver on government priorities that it can no longer afford to fund itself.

There is absolutely no justification for Defra to pick the pockets of hard-pressed levy payers in this way.

Defra denies that this is happening. If that is the case, it should prove it by stepping back from day-to-day spending decisions at the AHDB and agreeing a set of guidelines under which levy payers can take control.

Karl Schneider
Farmers Weekly, editor