OVERWHELMING INDUSTRY SUPPORT FOR VOLUNTARY SUCCESSOR BODY TO TAKE OVER EAMU AND EMERGENCY AUTHORISATIONS FROM AHDB HORTICULTURE.
Read the full statement here.
Unfortunately, the British Herbs Association Conference has been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances.
The event will now be held on 3rd March 2023, at the University of Warwick.
Tickets for the new date are now on sale HERE
More details will follow in a press release soon.
Read the latest industry news from British Growers, including updates on Horticulture Crop Protection Ltd and upcoming events, here.
The British Herbs Association are delighted to share the below announcement regarding their Conference due to take place on the 13 October 2022, at Warwick University.
British Herb Conference Speaker List PR
Please note that Sponsorship opportunities are still available for the event, please contact admin@britishgrowers.org for more information.
Tickets can be purchased via Eventbrite, by clicking on the link below.
Please feel free to share this within your networks, we look forward to seeing you soon!
The III International Symposium on Carrot and other Apiaceae is coming to the UK in 2023. The event wil
l be held over 4 days, starting on Monday 2nd October and finishing on Thursday 5th October 2023. The Symposium will involve a series of Symposium sessions and seminars held at the York Racecourse and with a variety celebratory dinners held around the historic city of York. The Symposium is joining forces with the British Carrot Growers Association who are inviting delegates to visit their annual Field Demonstration Day.
The Chair of the Scientific Committee, Professor Rosemary Collier, University of Warwick, is inviting researchers from across to world to submit their abstracts for presentations at the Symposium.
The Symposium will consist of plenary and specialised (scientific and technical) sessions and will address the current issues concerning the production of carrots and other Apiaceae for human consumption. The topics covered by the Symposium are likely to include:
- Market and consumer expectations
- Genetics and genomics
- Crop improvement
- Genetic diversity including wild relatives
- Biology and physiology
- Cultural practices: fertilization, irrigation, weed control
- Quality of products and post-harvest issues (transport, health impact, …)
- Crop protection: invertebrate and vertebrate pests, plant pathogens, weed control, Integrated Pest, Disease and Weed Management
- Seeds
Participants may offer an oral presentation or a poster presentation using the link below. The Scientific Committee will inform the author if the communication is accepted. The deadline for abstract submission is 31st January 2023, your abstract can be modified up until 15th March 2023.
Authors of abstracts accepted for presentation (both oral/poster) are expected to register for the symposium. All oral presenters, including invited and keynote speakers, must submit a manuscript for Acta Horticulturae. Authors of posters are welcome to submit a manuscript for Acta Horticulturae but posters cannot be published as such. The deadline for submission of papers is 30th April 2023, whilst the deadline for final modifications is 30th June 2023.
Paper Submission – International Symposium on Carrot and Other Apiaceae (carrotsymposium.com)
Despite a favourable start to the 2022 vegetable season growers are facing increasing challenges in trying to produce the nation’s supply of vegetables. An internal report commissioned by British Growers to look at the true costs of production for broccoli and carrots has highlighted that recent inflation busting cost increases have raised production costs to unprecedented levels and an urgent reset in the returns to growers is now vital to ensure continuity of supply in the future.
In April the average rate of inflation for agricultural inputs hit 28% driven by massive increases in fuel, energy, labour and fertiliser – all essential elements of vegetable production. In recent weeks the challenges facing growers have been compounded by the effects of drought and record temperatures with many of the key vegetable growing areas recording minimal rainfall since the Jubilee at the start of June. Lack of rain is not only affecting crops planted in the spring but crops which are being planted now for harvest during the winter.
Brassica growers have already been reporting plans to cut back production by as much as 20% and this coupled with the anticipated losses due to the ongoing drought could leave UK veg supplies in a deficit situation as we move into the autumn and winter. Moreover, possible restrictions on water usage could make an already difficult situation even worse.
Jack Ward CEO at British Growers said vegetable growers are facing a difficult situation. Earlier in the season we commissioned a report to look at the true costs of production and the returns growers need to ensure production here in the UK remains viable. The report showed that growers need a significant increase for their products to cover the inflationary effects on input costs and the financial impacts of the drought. In many instances, the retail price of vegetables is lower than it was 5 years ago despite five years of cost increases. In the last 12 months we have seen cost increases at retail of over 20% in other sectors (such as dairy and butter) yet the inflation in chilled veg is at 6.3% which means that growers and retailers are between them absorbing some of the extra production costs in an already fragile sector, a situation that cannot continue.
This lack of return is draining confidence out of the industry at a time when the UK needs to be investing in vegetable production. Unless growers can see a way of securing viable returns for the risks they take in growing vegetables, they will turn to other lower risk options such as growing other less risky crops like wheat, sugar beet, energy crops or even converting more land to solar farms and we are already starting to see this said Jack Ward. We urgently need a reset in the way UK vegetable growers are rewarded to ensure the risks from weather and the inflationary costs are more equitably shared across the supply chain.
Production challenges are becoming increasingly common due to the weather volatility. In recent years vegetable production has had to contend with drought, record rainfall, record amounts of frost and this year temperatures which significantly affect crops growing in the ground. During the season production from UK farms will represent the majority of retailer supplies. The production dips we are anticipating will make supplies of veg tight as we move into late autumn and winter. This situation is not confined to the UK. Other parts of Europe which have traditionally supplied the UK when domestic production was short are experiencing similar issues with production costs increases and record temperatures.
All parts of the supply chain need to work together to create a sustainable supply chain. The relentless pressure over the last five years to reduce costs has left growers with nowhere to go in the face of the current challenges and expecting growers in other parts of the world to make good any shortfall in domestic production may no longer be the solution. We face global food security challenges and therefore need a properly funded UK vegetable sector in order to meet the growing demand for this critical element of our national diet.
We are delighted to announce the British Herbs Conference to be held at Warwick University on the 13th October 2022
More details to follow soon!
Press Release June 2022
British Growers Association Announces New Client Partnership
British Growers Association is delighted to announce the Responsible Sourcing Scheme Ltd has chosen British Growers to manage their administration and accounting services. They will be joining 28 other groups within the horticultural and fresh produce industries, which currently make up the British Growers Membership.
The Responsible Sourcing Scheme (RSS) is an industry led collaboration of growing media manufacturers, retailers, growers, DEFRA, the HTA and NGOs, like RHS and Plantlife. Created in advance of the Government’s plan to ban the use of peat within the amateur sector by 2024, and in the professional sector by the end of 2028, the scheme is designed to encourage the industry to commit to a sustainable and peat-free future, and to ensure that materials used as an alternative to peat are as responsibly sourced as possible.
Lisa Eagles Operations Director at British Growers commented “British Growers is delighted to have aligned itself with a worthy scheme and are pleased that the RSS objectives aligns so closely with British Growers own; namely to support the safeguarding of the UK horticultural sector. British Growers provision of shared administrative and accountancy services will allow the scheme to fulfil its own objectives of ensuring the future sustainability of the industry.”
The primary objective of the RSS is to promote sustainability within the growing media industry, by allowing manufacturers and users of growing media to understand and measure how their choice of growing media materials impacts on seven criteria. These criteria include, energy use, water use, social compliance, habitat and biodiversity, pollution, renewability, and resource use efficiency. The scheme went live at the beginning of 2022, and with many of the UK’s major manufacturers already signed up, the RSS logo will start to appear on bags of growing media throughout the year.
Steve Harper, CEO at Southern Trident Limited and Chairman of the Responsible Sourcing Scheme said “The Responsible Sourcing Scheme for Growing Media are delighted to be working with the BGA to administer the scheme on an ongoing basis. It’s great to see the scheme now welcoming both new member manufacturers and retailers, the new website and the logos on pack. Andy Smith who has joined the BGA to administer the RSS for us allows us to be more professional and proactive as the scheme continues to grow. We look forward to forging a long and positive relationship with both Andy and the BGA.”
If you would like more information about the scheme, please visit the RSS website, or alternatively e-mail info@responsiblesourcing.org.uk
This June, British Summer Fruits, the industry body that represents 95% of all the UK’s commercial soft fruit growers, is relaunching and rebranding to become British Berry Growers.
Since 1992, the UK’s crop association for the soft fruit industry has supported UK growers to build a billion-pound industry and the largest within UK horticulture.
British Berry Growers’ ambition is for British seasonal berries to continue to provide 100% of the UK’s needs and for industry exports to be 50% bigger than British sales volumes by 2035.
The new organisation will have four key effort priorities:
- To ensure understanding of the British berry industry’s positive contribution to a sustainable rural economy and the nation’s health, and shape government policy to support British Berry Growers’ mission
- To direct world-leading berry research and development that supports treatment of pest and disease, crop utilisation and drives future efficiencies, including the reduction of the carbon, waste and water footprint of the UK berry industry
- To grow sales for berries by building UK consumer awareness and advocacy, focusing on British berries first and driving overall consumer demand by covering 52 weeks of the year
- To identify and tackle the industry’s key risks to ensure its long-term viability and to provide issues support for UK berry growers
Commenting on the launch of British Berry Growers, chair Nick Marston said: “The launch of British Berry Growers marks an exciting moment for the British berry industry.
“The British berry industry is a true British business success story. Now worth over £1.6 billion year-round, the value of the industry has doubled in just a decade. Our growers sit at the heart of the rural economy and our industry is recognised as a key contributor to UK food self-sufficiency.
“British Berry Growers will champion the tireless work of our berry growers, both big and small, and support them as they adapt to the future challenges of seasonal berry production. We’re here to secure the long-term success of the British berry industry.”
The creation of British Berry Growers brings with it the launch of a new dedicated R&D advisory board. Its purpose will be to enable British Berry Growers to become recognised as one of the best crop associations in the world technically and environmentally.
The evolution of the trade body also sees the appointment of two new non-executive directors to the British Berry Growers organisation. Former MEP Anthea McIntyre CBE joins the organisation to advise and support the organisation on policy matters, while Dr Louise Sutherland brings her years of expertise in agri-tech to scope and set up the newly formed R&D advisory board.
British Berry Growers will continue to fund Love Fresh Berries, the organisation’s all year-round PR and social media campaign to promote strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries and all berry industry activities.
The Yes Peas campaign, supported by the British Pea industry and British Growers, have released the following competition to celebrate Great British Pea Week 2022.
PEA-K YOUR OWN PEAS: YES PEAS! LAUNCHES COMPETITION TO MARK GREAT BRITISH PEA WEEK 2022
Yes Peas! is giving a limited number of veggie lovers the chance to pick their own peas for the first time ever
Run by the Yes Peas! campaign on behalf of the UK Vining Pea industry and the British Growers Association, Great British Pea Week is an annual event that celebrates a small and mighty vegetable: the pea!
Thanks to optimum soil and climate conditions, peas are grown the length of the Eastern Seaboard, from Essex right up to Dundee. The UK alone is home to 700 pea farms across the UK who produce around 160,000 tonnes of frozen peas each year, most of which travel from field to freezer in around 150 minutes.
Great British Pea Week runs through from 4th – 10th July and this year, Yes Peas! is continuing its mission to inspire everyone to cook with peas and is providing lucky pea-lovers with the opportunity to go along to the fields to pick their own, straight from the vine.
Interested pea enthusiasts will be able to register their interest to pick their very own peas straight from the pod by visiting the Yes Peas! website.
Five lucky winners will be chosen at random and will get an exclusive invite to the field for one day and one day only. They will have the chance to pick, pod and pack up as many fresh peas straight from the field as they can lay their hands on to take home, ready to whip up some delicious dishes!
Coral Clark, spokesperson for the Yes Peas! campaign, says: “We’re thrilled to be opening up one of our pea fields exclusively for the first time ever! Great British Pea Week is our annual celebration of the UK’s vining pea industry. We are 90% self sufficient in pea production in the UK, so it’s safe to say they’re one of our favourite vegetables.”
Campaign ambassador and chef, Rachel Green, adds: “We are passionate about using peas to make exciting new meals and dishes, and hope that we can inspire the nation to do just that for Great British Pea Week. It’s not to be missed!”
Competition opens 25th May 2022. For more information about the campaign, recipe inspiration and to enter, visit our website at www.peas.org.
Please contact Nina Rathore or Ruby Mortimer on 0113 361 3600 / YesPeas@hatchpr.co.uk for further information.
ABOUT YES PEAS!
The highly successful Yes Peas! campaign, run by the British Growers Association and funded by growers, freezers and machinery companies from the vining pea sector, is in its thirteenth year. The campaign aims to promote the versatility, provenance and nutritional benefits of frozen peas and engages with consumers to inspire them to use peas as an ingredient, as well as an accompaniment, to meals. The campaign is supported by hundreds of recipes developed by campaign ambassador and TV chef, Rachel Green, available at www.peas.org.
