Cereals and oilseeds: what do I get for my levy?

Supporting success within the arable sector.

We aim to enable UK cereals and oilseeds growers and supply chains to thrive and prosper in a rapidly changing world with independent and unbiased advice and guidance.

In the next decade, we face unprecedented volatility, through the loss of farm subsidies, a reduced range of chemicals to fight disease, leaving the EU, climate change and environmental sustainability.

The cereals and oilseeds sector can thrive with the backing of a strong domestic market and strengthening business resilience with better agronomy, cost of production and a skilled workforce.

We have a team of regional managers and technical experts, who are willing to help answer your queries, please follow the 'meet the team' section for more details.

In this podcast, we asked two farmers and an adviser to talk frankly about the AHDB levy.

A nationwide network of Monitor and Strategic farms, bringing together farmers and researchers to discuss and share new ideas, issues and challenges on a range of agronomic and business topics.

Growers are invited to join them with the aim to improve performance by setting goals, recording progress, benchmarking, sharing information and ideas, adopting new systems and techniques. The emphasis of the programme is on practical farming and good business decisions.

AHDB partners with the British Nutrition Foundation to support food education in the UK and deliver the Food – a fact of life (FFL) programme. The aim of the programme is to ensure that young people are better informed about where food comes from, as well as the skills and knowledge for cooking and healthy eating. It is designed for teachers of 3 to 16-year-olds and provides curriculum-relevant resources and teacher training.

AHDB’s Recommended List (RL) remains the most widely used publication in cereal production. It forms the basis of every decision on which variety to plant, providing independent, un-biased assessment of yield, quality and resistance to pests and diseases.

We invest over half our budget to fill gaps in production knowledge and communicate findings out to growers. Currently, our three focus areas are:

1. The integration of pest, weed and disease management information.
2. Provision of up-to-date nutrient management information.
3. Investigation of ways to manage and improve soil health.

Farmbench has over 2,000 registered users. This provides a wide variety of comparable farms to help identify where you can improve efficiency and increase profits.

Our skilled team of market specialists and analysts issue daily and weekly market news. This delivers up-to-date information on market prices, supply and demand, futures and the import/export markets. 

The AHDB cereals and oilseeds board set the strategy and manage the budget and spend for the sector. Made up of growers, processors, agronomists and independent experts to ensure we hear from as much of the industry as possible.

The cereals and oilseeds sector plan for 2021-26 largely revolves around managing pest and disease pressures through greater use and adoption of integrated pest management approaches. Alongside improving business profitability for farmers and processors.

We are focused on change - earlier this year, AHDB outlined its five commitments to levy payers in response to the request for views published by Defra in Spring 2020.