She writes:
This inaugural NFU Business Symposium brought together industry professionals, ranging from consultants, bankers, land agents, surveyors, legal advisors and policy makers, in order to discuss how the entire sector is adapting to the challenges facing farmers and growers. All who attended had an integral role to play in the discussions that surrounded the underlying theme for the day of Managing Business Change.
We heard from Dr Andrew Clark, the NFU’s director of policy who outlined the importance of a competitive, sustainable and progressive farm business and emphasised how the farming sector must be situated as part of the wider food chain. Through outlining the NFU’s vision for a new Domestic Agricultural Policy he also highlighted the importance of a ‘flexible approach to policy’ in order to ensure it works for all farm businesses.
Mark Suthern, head of agriculture at Barclays Bank, stressed the importance of being proactive in the Brexit world and not ‘waiting for the storm to pass’. Mark spoke on behalf of all the banks and stated that agriculture is a favourable sector to support. He highlighted that the lending guidelines remain unchanged despite the decision to leave the EU as ‘Barclays believes in the progressive resilience and adaption of UK farmers’.
Dr Susannah Bolton, director of knowledge exchange at AHDB, explained that, despite a dynamic industry, our ability as a nation to utilise knowledge is the largest constraint on our productivity. She questioned if we are investing in the right research and she highlighted how more needs to be done to ensure the correct people are equipped with the correct knowledge.
Tom Bradshaw represented the farming community on the panel, giving his personal experiences of taking over the farming business, Proagri, after completing his Nuffield scholarship in soil fertility. Tom stressed the importance of soil health for a productive, efficient future stating ‘many business improvements will come as a result’ and outlined the experiences he had with changing the direction of his family's mixed farm to an arable enterprise.
Finally, Nigel Davies from Promar International was aligned with Susannah’s thinking on how agriculture is a science and must be underpinned by robust evidence. He said the largest challenge in the consultancy industry is influencing and encouraging progression: ‘We need to turn volatility into vision and build trust from consultant to client’.
After the five presentations, the panel received questions from the floor. The diverse roles of the speakers meant both the questions and answers were varied. One attendee asked what the panellists least like to hear in their role.
Nigel Davies responded with ‘agreement’ as the need for a challenge shows a more inquisitive client.
Dr Susannah Bolton’s response emphasised the issues she spoke of surrounding stagnated productivity in the UK: ‘If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’.
Tom Bradshaw shared from first-hand experience that farmers may be wary of change, and all efforts must be made to change the language used when providing services and advice to encourage positive progression, an earlier theme that had been explored.
The panel had common interests in the need to drive change in a proactive manner, although each speaker had different priorities of what change meant in their industry: education, sustainability, trade and productivity were reoccurring themes.
NFU President Meurig Raymond, who chaired this historic session, said: "Together we must overcome fundamental challenges to make British agriculture a success."
The day really emphasised the need for a united approach.