Background to AHDB
On 28 June 2006, Jeff Rooker, Minister for Sustainable Food and Farming, together with Devolved Ministers, announced that five levy bodies (the British Potato Council, the Meat and Livestock Commission, the Milk Development Council, the Horticultural Development Council and the Home Grown Cereals Authority) should be radically restructured and replaced by one statutory levy board with six wholly owned sector companies on 1 April 2008.
Separate announcements were made by Ministers in the Scottish Executive and the Welsh Assembly Government concerning the future of the meat bodies: Quality Meat Scotland and Hybu Cig Cymru.
The announcement followed an independent review of the five statutory levy bodies in 2005 by Rosemary Radcliffe and an industry consultation:
The predecessor levy boards were dissolved by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board Order 2008 which replaced them with a new body named the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).
Copies of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board Order 2008 (Statutory Instrument) are available here and a guidance note on the Order is below
The Order also provides for the establishment of organisations to represent each of the sectors covered by it and the new sector divisions of AHDB are:
It was confirmed in December 2007 that AHDB and its sector divisions would be co-located in Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire. This process will start during Autumn 2008 and will culminate with the move into a new building on the Stoneleigh site during 2010.