Future of fruit and vegetable producer organisations (PO) regime to be debated at conference

A key conference to discuss the future of the fruit and vegetable PO regime must address concerns which are mounting in the UK over the scheme, according to the NFU.

NFU chief horticulture adviser Phil Hudson and horticulture board chairman Sarah Pettitt will represent members at the European-wide conference on the future of the fruit and vegetables PO regime after 2013.

Sarah Pettitt said: This conference will be important to understanding what the fruit and vegetables PO regime could look like after 2013. Crucially it must continue to provide support to producer organisations right across the EU, including the UK as the means of encouraging growers to work together. To do that will mean that there must be a shared understanding of the interpretation of the regulations across all EU member states.

On the domestic front, the provision of support to fruit and vegetable POs has been fraught with problems over the past five years leading to a loss of confidence in the scheme by growers and producer organisations alike.

Defra has established a small working group to respond to the concerns growers and producer organisations have over the running of the scheme and how it is interpreted by the EU.

We called for action to restore the lost confidence of UK growers and producer organisations in the scheme, and therefore, we welcome the move by Defra to set up the working group. But it is of paramount importance that Defra now progresses urgently with this work.

The CMO for fruit and vegetables was set up as part of the CAP. The most recent placed the emphasis on making producer organisations more attractive to growers in order to stabilise incomes and find an answer to competition from imported producers.

• The conference is aimed at policymakers at a regional, national and European level and managers from producer organisations.
• The fruit and vegetable sector takes up between three and four per cent of the EUs agricultural budget while it represents 17 per cent of the value of agricultural production in the EU.
• The conference will take place on Thursday between 9.30am and 5.30pm.