The Horticulture Innovation Partnership (HIP) is well placed to capitalise on the current drive to make the UK a world leader in agricultural and horticultural technology, innovation and sustainability, says NFU Horticulture and Potatoes Adviser, Lee Abbey
The HIP was created following a series of round table discussions on the future of UK horticulture, led by the then Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir John Beddington, which identified the need for the industry to pull together, make better use of skills and resources, and to set a common strategy to meet the technical requirements for the industry. Since its launch just over a year ago, the HIP has made significant progress: it has created a ‘funders group’, bringing together key bodies to share expertise and facilitate the flow of innovation; it has won the competitive tender to become co-ordinator for the BBSRC Horticulture and Potatoes Initiative (HAPI); and the HIP ran a successful research funding brokering event with the Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer Network to facilitate applications to the Technology Strategy Board.
The most significant development is actually something that couldn’t have even been envisaged when HIP was launched in early 2013. The Agri-Tech Strategy was launched in July last year and announced the government’s ambition for the UK to once again be a world leader in agricultural and horticultural technology, innovation and sustainability. It presented the opportunity to secure millions of pounds of support to develop sector based innovation centres. With its rapidly developing relationships across the whole supply chain, the HIP was perfectly placed to lead the bid on behalf of the horticulture sector, and that is exactly what it has done.
Last week, the HIP announced that it had started a dialogue with researchers and advisory consultants about how they might engage with a proposed Centre of Agri-Innovation for Fresh and Prepared Produce (CAIP). This follows meetings with other industry representatives earlier in the year, which confirmed there was unanimous support for the development of an Innovation Centre focussed on fresh and prepared produced.
Although the formal bid for funding hasn’t yet opened, it is credit to the HIP and its supporters that they have already submitted a Statement of Intent to the leaders of the Agri-Tech Strategy, outlining the industry’s developing vision for an Innovation Centre. The HIP is now utilising the outputs from its numerous stakeholder meetings to build a proposal for Agri-Tech funding for the centre.
It’s not always easy to demonstrate how your efforts will translate into real benefits on the ground and just over a year on since the HIP was launched, some growers may be scratching their heads wondering what’s in it for them. Well, if the HIP is able to pull the industry together to make a successful bid for the CAIP, that’s a blooming good start (pardon the horticultural pun!). Pulling together key stakeholders from across the industry to help shape a sector strategy for innovation, as well as bringing research providers and research funders together to make better use of resources, should, in theory at least, provide long term benefits for the sector. For growers, this should translate into more meaningful and targeted research programmes that can be applied on-farm to help improve yields, cut costs, reduce inputs and meet environmental challenges. Have a look at the recently released HIP annual report if you want to know more.
What is really important to understand is that the HIP covers the entire supply chain and so I would urge growers to get engaged with it and make their priorities and views heard.
Of course, only time will tell how successful the HIP will be, but its ambitions are commendable and it has certainly made an impressive start. The HIP is something that the industry should engage with to give it the best possible chance of making a real difference on the ground; without this engagement we risk missing opportunities to push the sector forward.
For now, at least, the HIP is certainly happening.