Project background

In July 2009 we held a workshop that considered the issues of resilience and competitiveness with farmers, industry representatives, Defra policy leads and academic experts. We now want to build on the information gained from that event in exploring the concepts of competitiveness and resilience in the agricultural industry further.

By contributing to the online discussion, you will help to increase our understanding of the current state of the industry and contribute to the future decisions that we and others will make.

We are hoping to:

• Build on ideas gathered at July’s workshop to deepen our understanding of resilience and how it relates to competitiveness;
• Get insights from you that will help us develop our thinking about how to improve resilience and competitiveness;
• Consider recent trends and help establish a baseline assessment of the resilience and competitiveness across the farming sector in England;
• Show how the concepts of resilience and competitiveness are linked, including any trade-offs;
• Identify possible options for improving competitiveness and bolstering resilience.

We have written a supporting document [pdf] that explores the issues of competitiveness and resilience further. This draws on a wide range of information (including Defra survey data and published papers) and considers in more detail what the possible areas for exploration might be.