Background The AHDB Potatoes Board has been considering the long - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Background • The AHDB Potatoes Board has been considering the long term future and succession plan for potato storage research in Britain. • The board wants to ensure that we have continued access to the best people and ideas to deliver what the industry needs. • The AHDB Potatoes Board will always invest resources in storage; the question is the best way to do this. • Our industry’s “Knife edge” • Timing of loss of CIPC • Introduction of alternative programmes

Vision • AHDB wishes to engage with the market and potential partners to identify the most viable options(s) to guarantee continued world-leading potato storage research, and associated knowledge exchange (KE), in the short, medium and long-term, using specialised resources and facilities. • Our vision is for a dynamic and innovation-led approach that delivers for levy payers and industry and can adapt to a rapidly changing environment.

Challenges Short ongoing Longer term Demise of CIPC Seed sector needs Energy Alternatives for fresh and proc. Transit conditions Design and engineering Role of MH Agronomy and storage Exploiting the genome dormancy Trouble shooting Climate change Responses to ethylene / CO2 Waste decontamination physiology Improved management

Delivering a real time programme

Key points • The independent nature of how AHDB funds research and delivers KE is valued right across our programme, this is no different for storage issues and needs to be secured for the future. • Because of the size of SBCSR, and the number of scientists we employ, we’re not eligible to capitalise on the research funding that comes through the biological research councils. In a practical sense it means that when we fund projects through other research institutes, we can make the levy go up to four times as far. • Geography and distance from big academic hubs make it difficult to attract new scientific talent to potato research at Sutton Bridge. That means our succession planning is always a risky business and we lose out to more established and vibrant research hubs. • Other institutes are built to manage research facilities . As SBCSR is the only research facility owned by AHDB, it’s hard to justify the personnel required to write and manage bids, seek out commercial customers and other over-head type activities other research institutes pick up with their greater scale of operations. • The talent, knowledge and skills of the SBCSR team are paramount and their welfare is important to us