Norfolk and Suffolk Agri-Food Industry Council

Tuesday 14 March 2023 10.00-12.00

Via Teams

Minutes

Welcome from the Chair

 Corrienne Peasgood, the Chair, welcomed members to the meeting and set the focus of the

meeting around current projects and potential future opportunities.

 Minutes of the last meeting were approved.

 Noted apologies (listed at the bottom of the minutes).

 There has been a change of Industry Council membership. The Terms of Reference and

membership requirements will be circulated to members with the Minutes.

 We would appreciate recommendations to fill representative gaps of the supply chain.

County Deals: Chris Starkie, New Anglia LEP

 Corrienne introduced Chris and positioned the session as an opportunity to get an update on

County deals, ask questions and think about how the industry council would want to work going

forward under the new deals.

Background history to County Deals:

 Process began in 2021 when Government announced a new radical approach to Devolution

deals building on the first round from 2016.

 Government put two options on the table for local areas: Create a Mayoral Combined Authority,

or a County Deal for a single County with a directly elected leader.

 Most places went for the former, but Norfolk and Suffolk County Councils have decided to go

on their own to create their own County Deals.

 The District Councils are not involved formally or legally although they will be involved

informally.

 The deals will see the powers of funding transferred to the County Councils and the creation of

directly elected leaders for both Councils.

 Directly elected leaders will not be County Councillors or have a ward, but they will be leaders

of the County Councils

Why are the Councils doing this?

 There is some money – £20m investment fund for every year for 30 years (not inflation proof).

 Funding for Brownfield land regeneration projects.

 Consolidated transport budgets.

 Adult education budget.

 Powers to create Mayoral development corporations.

 Shared Prosperity Fund transferred to County Councils (currently routed through districts).

 Integration of LEP functions.

What does it mean for the LEP?

 The LEP will be integrated into these functions.

 We are the only area where the LEP geography does not map onto the proposed County Deal.

 The Government set out a number of LEP functions they expect to be continued:

o A strong and independent, diverse business voice into local democratic institutions.

o Strategic economic planning.

o Building and maintaining a robust local evidence base.

o Continue to use convening power to bring together business, education and other

stakeholders.

o Continue to deliver functions on behalf of Government departments shaped by local

business voice.

o LEP function should complement and add value to the wider suite of decision-making

powers devolved to local leaders.

What are the implications for the LEP?

 Geography: How do you integrate one organisation into two?

 Nothing will happen until May 2024 when the Mayoral election happens.

 LEP is continuing business as usual for the coming financial year.

 The two County Councils are looking at how the functions get transferred across to them or

bodies set up by them. The LEP believes there are key points to be considered as they do this:

o A strong and effective business and education voice. Involvement in the development

and implementation of the economic strategy and decision making about programmes.

o Programmes that support businesses – this would be lost if delivered by local authority

colleagues.

o Being agile and entrepreneurial.

o Cross-County working. Businesses do not think about borders.

 Models proposed:

o Creation of a Business board is mandatory.

o LEP will be working with Norfolk and Suffolk County Councils in the creation of their

business boards and in determining what functions and powers they should have.

o Suffolk are working up a number of models of how this should look, Norfolk have not yet

worked out details. This could create an opportunity to influence.

 Government cannot transfer the LEP assets to the County Councils. This needs resolving.

What does it mean for the Industry Councils?

 You do not have to have a LEP to have an Industry Council.

 Chris is looking to understand from each Industry Council their plans for continuation and how

that gets plugged into the new governance arrangements that are created.

Martin Collison:

 The transition needs to be seamless to avoid losing time and momentum. Need to keep focus

on the growth and innovation agendas. Chris mentioned that the LEP is working to ensure a

smooth transition.

Belinda Clarke:

 Single County approach is slightly worrying. Hosting a dinner with 12 US states who work

together and need to be joined up.

Greg Smith:

 Skills Sector Group has discussed this and tends to think about things on a regional basis,

which is where the strength is.

Clarke Willis:

 Used to be a successful Food and Farming Forum that covered the whole of the Eastern

Counties.

 In Lincolnshire, things are being funded through different routes so there is money from the

private sector, public sector and academia to drive the agenda forward.

CP – in summary, the view of the AFIC is that the area covered should remain as Norfolk and Suffolk

as most collaboration is across the two counties and wider, whilst recognising that this would require

good links with NCC and SCC and that changes to governance etc. should be managed so that the

work of AFIC isn’t paused or disrupted.

Agri-Food Skills Updates – Greg Smith, Sector Skills Group & Martin Collison, Collison

Associates

Greg Smith:

 The group met last at the end of February. In that time, it has contributed to Defra’s

independent review of labour shortages by taking part in a roundtable and making a written

contribution. Labour skills was the core focus. A report from Defra is set to be produced by the

end of this month.

 The Skills Group, which benefits from representatives from across the region, has been

working on its priorities and a short paper has been produced.

Martin Collison – Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) (slides attached):

 LSIPs are identifying where we need to invest more within skills. They are being used by

Government to target the types of training they will fund and support.

 It is all about post 16 education, both the formal education system but also short courses,

training, and soft skills – all types of training are within scope.

 Martin is focussing on agri-food and agri-tech skills and undertaken mainly one-to-one

interviews, going beyond the usual suspects.

 Feedback is that:

o Businesses are finding it difficult to recruit to every type and every level of job in the

sector.

o Businesses are increasingly using external providers to do their work.

o A wide variety of providers are being used, not many interviewed are using the formal

education system.

o A lot of provision is being done ‘in-house’.

o Automation and digital skills have been identified as skills gaps.

o The agri-tech sector is struggling to know how to secure the required workforce to grow.

o We need to do a lot more in the school system to increase STEM skills.

o Businesses are being pushed to do more around climate, carbon, water, and

biodiversity, but there are not enough people trained in these skills.

o Businesses within food and drink and food processing are finding it to recruit staff at a

local level. Relocation is not possible as there is a national shortage of such skills,

o Some skills shortages have prevented aspects of regular production, so businesses

have stopped doing aspects themselves and outsourced instead.

o Mental wellness, health and safety are seen as very important.

 This work will be completed in the next 7-10 days. Martin would welcome further contributions.

Net Zero: Spotlight on the Wendling Beck Environment Project & wider environmental projects

in the region (Rosie Begg and Clarke Willis):

Rosie Begg:

 The Wendling Beck project is a pioneering partnership which includes farmers, NGO’s, public

and private sectors.

 Wendling Beck is a chalk bed tributary to the river Wensum, it links three SSI’s and the project

covers 2000 acres.

 Currently largely arable land, the future is a change to a ‘mosaic habitat’ of heathland, low land

meadow, parkland, wetland, restoration and a number of other uses.

 Partnerships include John Innes Centre, for a disease resistant Ash and Elm nursery, a

community focus with a new cycle way, an environmental hub that will be at Gressenhall

Museum and access to outdoor space for mental and physical wellbeing activities.

 Funding mechanisms include ecosystem service knowledge and environmental services. This

is principally biodiversity net gain. There is a blend of private and public funding.

 A pilot is in place looking at nutrient neutrality and how through different natural flood

management methods and other ways of farming we can help with the nutrient load that is

going into rivers. Another method is using a tech company to do carbon LIDAR scanning from

drones.

 Output so far: 27 hectares of peatland restoration, 40 hectares of lowland meadow, 2.7

hectares of lowland fen, 600 metres of chalk stream restoration.

 The Nature Conservancy are documenting everything so that other farmers can learn from it.

 Working with law firms to understand legal mechanisms, understanding tax issues and how

public money can be used to pump prime these sorts of projects.

 This project has been done within 3 years by a young team of landowners.

 Collaboration is key.

 Video can be viewed here or through the website: Wendling Beck Environment Project - an

introduction - YouTube.

Clarke Willis:

 RNAA members can access a walk round event at Wendling Beck on 12th April.

 There is an agri revolution and environment schemes are appearing across the country.

 Challenge is the direction of travel for the industry. This is the last year of the basic payment

scheme for farmers, payments will then go into agri-environment schemes.

 We are now in a 25-year environment plan supported by government policy. It is a challenge

because there is not a government policy about producing food.

 Moving to a ‘whole farm approach’. Stewardship options that were separate are now part of

agricultural production. Not just about planting hedges, but soil management. Farmers can get

£129 a hectare for planting winter cover on bare ground.

 Sustainable Farm Incentive (SFI) has come in, it is a simple list of actions.

 Countryside Stewardship (CES), what the government called local nature recovery is now CS

plus.

 There are 8 organisations in Norfolk and Suffolk that are running ‘Farm for the Future’

programmes. These include classroom and one-to-one on-farm sessions to help farmers. It is

part of DEFRA’s Future Farm Resilience Fund.

 County farm is one area they are looking at, 100 tenants to whom the basic payment scheme

has been their bottom line.

 Schemes to take land out of production into wildflower meadows can pay good money, so it is

a changing agri-food environment.

 Norfolk County Council want to plant a million trees in the next three years, Norfolk FWAG

target is 300,000 trees. We do not want to plant these on good arable land.

 There is a new company being set up by local authorities to look at the nutrient neutrality

problem.

 Peat restoration could stimulate a new industry.

Andrew Francis

 There needs to be a balance, there is concern about a movement of land away from food

production.

Clarke Willis

 The balance went too far in the wrong direction in the past and needs rebalancing. This is

about carbon credits, environment, and global warming. We do not grow enough protein in this

part of the world. We are growing feed for animals and those industries are disappearing. We

have lost a third of our sows in the last 12 months.

Business Intelligence: Agri-Food Consultancy Report State of Play – Paul Mayfield, SAC

Consulting (Slides attached)

Stuart Catchpole, New Anglia LEP

 New Anglia LEP commissioned SAC consulting to undertake some updated business

intelligence work on the agri-food sector, ‘Defining the future of the agri-food sector in Norfolk

and Suffolk.’ This is a joint project between the LEP’s Inward Investment, Innovation and

Sectors, and Strategy teams. It will help to provide a focus for our activities, especially around

proposition development for promoting Norfolk and Suffolk as a destination for investment and

will provide a process to continually gather and update data.

 The Savills report has been provided to SAC but has not been a document that has been of

use to the Inward Investment team.

Paul Mayfield:

 SAC is part of the Scottish Rural College, but the team has members working in the region.

 Focus areas include:

o A thorough insight into our agri-food sector.

o Provision of detailed market intelligence and insights into how the sector is changing,

identifying future direction and opportunities for our businesses to exploit.

o Making recommendations on the priority, commercial opportunities for our sector and

provide propositions to exploit the identified opportunities.

o Providing a platform for the ongoing delivery of sector intelligence.

 Currently 70%-80% through analysing farm data and have started to interview key

stakeholders.

 Starting to see some patterns and these are highlighted in the slides, but more work is to be

done.

 Paul has a list of contacts but please do get in touch if you would like to contribute to the study.

Inward Investment/HPO: Plant Science for Nutrition DIT High Potential Opportunity Marketing

Campaign (Stuart Catchpole, New Anglia LEP):

 The Norwich Research Park partners are working with Capsule Marketing on a digital

marketing campaign to promote the HPO in plant science and nutrition.

 This will be a social media campaign driving targeted traffic to an expert webinar and ongoing

resource hub. This will provide an ongoing element of the campaign and help to build interest,

awareness, engagement and hopefully generate a pipeline of activity.

 Institutes will have access to the assets produced to create their own campaigns in follow up,

proving further longevity of activity.

 On 13 March, we hosted a visit from the Head of Inward Investment from DBT in Hyderabad,

South India. Our guest visited Claydons before travelling to the Food Enterprise Park,

Broadland Food Innovation Centre and then Norwich Research Park. It was very well received,

and Siddharth is keen to promote our agri-food sector both within India and with colleagues in

other regions. This is something we hope to facilitate with other global posts.

Space Cluster: Launch of Space Cluster for Norfolk and Suffolk & Agri Space Living Lab

Feasibility Report (Julian Munson, New Anglia LEP):

 The Space East Cluster was officially launched at the Connected Innovation Conference on 10

March.

 New Anglia LEP was successful in bidding for just over 2 years of funding from the UK Space

Agency funding to set up the Cluster and drive forward activities across multiple sectors.

 Government is keen to see the space ecosystem come to life across all regions, and we are

one of a number of clusters.

 The Space Steering group has been in place for over 18 months now deepening our

understanding of the opportunities in this region across upstream and downstream.

 On the upstream side, we have companies like Gravitilab that can provide microgravity testing

opportunities for agri-food businesses and research.

 The major opportunity for our region is in the downstream applications of space technology and

satellite applications which is particularly important for the agri sector, and as we know already

well established.

 We also have CEFAS for world-leading marine science research that has a team of satellite

experts.

 The Space Sector Strategy for Norfolk & Suffolk has been produced and can be found on the

new website for the Space East Cluster: www.spaceeast.co.uk

 Given the focus on agri-food and agri-tech in this Strategy, the LEP has worked on the

following:

o Delivering the ‘Space Tech meets Agri-Tech’ in partnership with Agri-TechE at Easton

college, which was a fabulous event and showed us there was a lot of excitement

around applications of space and satellite technologies for the agri-food sector. This

includes the science base. Many thanks to Belinda and team for putting on an excellent

event!

o Agri Space Living lab – James Allen led an additional bid to the UK Space Agency on

top of our space cluster funding to secure funding for a feasibility study for an Agri

Space Living Lab in Norfolk and Suffolk. James is working with the Satellite

Applications Catapult, who run the Living Labs Network, and consultants Current.Works

who are leading on the report. A workshop will be held on Thursday 23 March following

a series of interviews with key representatives from agri-food and agri-tech and the

report should be submitted before the end of the financial year. Please contact James if

you would like to be part of the steering group to keep momentum going on this as we

explore potential funding options.

 Stuart Catchpole will be the new Space Cluster Manager starting 3rd April.

State of the Nation - All

Andrew Francis:

 Concerns over lack of rainfall, poor river flows and lower than normal aquifer reserves the

further East you go in the region.

 Estimated planted area of root vegetables is likely to be significantly reduced adding to current

fresh produce food shortages and affordability for the next 18 months.

Emma Taylor

 Hoping to secure further Skills Bootcamps at Suffolk Rural for 2023-4 in arboriculture and

horticulture - interviews this week.

 Leading the New Anglia Green Skills Conference tomorrow, the culmination of a 5 College

regional project including investments in skills and equipment at Suffolk Rural.

Charles Hesketh:

 Precision breeding bill (gene editing) due to get royal assent this week.

 CPTPP (Comprehensive and progressive trans pacific partnership) is the next big trade deal in

the works (possibly following Canada) rumours of circa 13,000T beef tariff free imports)

 Food security is the next big buzz word. Seeing market failure in eggs and some horticulture

lines in particular.

 Water – region still in drought status, and irrigation prospects from the Environment Agency is

moderate to poor. farmers can apply to extend abstraction beyond end of the month. Some

reservoirs only 25% full in Norfolk. Water will be the future oil, overseas aquifers are running

out so domestic food security more important than ever.

 Grants – many are focused on food production such as productivity and slurry which was

oversubscribed last year. Animal health and welfare grant for small abattoirs in the works. Also

rounds coming up of grants for – Water management large scale reservoirs - slurry

infrastructure – improving farm productivity.

 Direction of travel. The government did produce a food strategy last year, a very

comprehensive piece led by Defra Non-Exec Director Henry Dimbleby. Big focus in that of

maintaining domestic food supply and increasing in horticulture. Market will dictate what

farmers do to an extent (i.e if wheat price stays high). Conversations with the likes of Janet

Hughes at Defra are that the government’s strategy is not to take productive land out of food

production.

Belinda Clarke:

 Agri-TechE hosting an online event tomorrow entitled "Data, Data, Everywhere, But Does it

Make Us Think?" All welcome.

Greg Smith:

 Will circulate the next iteration of the Sector Skills group priorities paper and would welcome

comment/ideas from AFIC members.

Jerry White:

 Work with LSIP ongoing and also starting to undertake a review of curriculum as required by

Government.

 Using some funding from Norfolk County Council to pilot 2 undergraduate internships for young

people (from Sept 2023) to spend a year at Easton College supporting the learning of our

students.

 Recruiting skilled and current lecturers continues to be a key constraint.

Clarke Willis:

 What is happening with the Shared Prosperity Fund money that has gone to Districts?

 Nourish Food and Drink Conference at Barnham Broom on 29 March.

 Taking 8 food and drink businesses to the Food & Drink expo at NEC 24th-26th.

 Broadland Food Innovation Centre almost full.

Cath Crowther (received outside of the meeting):

 Rural England Prosperity Fund – worrying that many local authorities still are not proceeding as

it is intended, as a successor to Leader. The CLA is pushing local authorities to ensure the

funding is accessible by rural and farming businesses for diversification projects to benefit the

rural economy. The CLA is also in discussions with Defra to ensure they are also pushing local

authorities to target funding appropriately.

 The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Rural Business and the Rural Powerhouse is

due to publish its report on the impact the cost-of-living crisis is having on businesses &

communities in the countryside soon.

 The CLA have just held a series of successful agricultural transition roadshows outlining the

new schemes and what farmers can look at during 2023. Lots of resources available here:

https://www.cla.org.uk/agricultural-transition/ and https://www.cla.org.uk/cla-east-news/cla-

east-agricultural-transition-roadshow-documents/.

 The CLA is working hard to limit the impact of nutrient neutrality, working regionally and

nationally.

 The Electricity System Operator is to review "offshore routes” for electricity transmission to

consider the alternatives for the East Anglia GREEN proposals, which could also be beneficial

for future offshore wind projects and other energy projects across the east

https://www.cla.org.uk/cla-east-news/east-anglia-green-latest/

 We have just launched our AGMs and visits across the East for 2023 – details here

https://members.cla.org.uk/MY-CLA/Events.

Mike Simmonds, REAF CIC (received outside of meeting):

 Mike Warner, one of the new Directors of REAF CIC, is leading on our work to develop a

Regional Seafood Strategy.

Any Other Business (Chair)

In Attendance

Corrienne Peasgood (Chair); Adrian Dyter, Muntons; Andrew Francis, Team Ag(UK); Martin Collison,

Collison and Associates; Greg Smith, Agri-Food Skills Group; Jo Middleton, Norfolk County Council;

Charles Hesketh, NFU; Emma Taylor Suffolk New College; Rosie Begg, Gorgate Ltd; Matt Jones,

Suffolk County Council; Clarke Willis, Food Enterprise Park, Chris Starkie, Stuart Catchpole & Julian

Munson, New Anglia LEP; Belinda Clarke, Agri-TechE

Apologies for absence

Alan Pease, Suffolk New College; Cath Crowther, CLA; Sam Fairs, Hillfairs Farming Ltd; James Allen,

New Anglia LEP; Philip Ainsworth, Suffolk Agricultural Association; Tim Place, Place UK. Alexander

Larter, Broadland Food Innovation Centre; Ben Turner, Ben Burgess and Co Ltd; Mark Nicholas, Royal

Norfolk Agricultural Association; and Jonathan Clarke, JIC.