A revolution in agricultural productivity will be needed, and fast, if producers are to capitalize on Brexit, continue to feed ourselves as a nation and protect the environment.
The warning comes in a bold new paper from the leading food and farming knowledge house, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, published ahead of the agenda-setting Oxford Farming Conference 2018.
Currently, Britain is falling significantly behind major competitor countries in the rate of growth in productivity, with pace-setters like the USA and the Netherlands growing productivity three times faster than we are domestically.
A yawning productivity gap, worth over £4.3bn in lost GDP between 2000 and 2013 alone, has opened up, as a result of the country failing to keep pace.
The report, Driving productivity growth together, calls for industry to seize the opportunity of the Government’s new industrial strategy and forge a new partnership to drive what AHDB calls ‘a dramatic acceleration’ in productivity growth.
