It was my privilege this week to attend the AEA's Annual Conference, once again taking place in the salubrious surroundings of One Great George Street in Westminster. This year's event saw some fascinating speakers address the gathered representatives of manufacturers, industry suppliers and dealers, who this year were, quite literally, royally treated - more of which later.
After welcomes by the AEA's CEO and DG, Ruth Bailey, and incoming President, Chris Meacock of John Deere, the conference programme began with a talk by Bruce Daisley, the former UK director of Twitter.
Bruce spoke on best practice for businesses building teams in a changing world. He said that as AI will begin to give to the same advice to all your competitors, the real differentiator that companies can leverage, will be the human influence on top of this emerging technology. His was a positive message that AI wouldn’t be replacing workers – rather it will be a tool that will need quality people to control. Culture, he said, will be the single most important factor for creating a sense of ‘we-ness’ in business – and for giving team members a vital feeling of autonomy. This will allow companies to attract and retain the best candidates.
Simon Jack, who will be familiar face to many in his capacity as the BBC’s business editor, was up next. His speech, which he stressed was in a personal capacity and not necessarily representative of the corporation he works for, was funny, incisive and enlightening. Taking an ambitious look at how current world events will be impacting on everyone’s businesses, he said the three greatest worries for him right now were were energy, tax and robots. With the events in the Middle East, that crucial element of confidence has taken a massive hit in the business world, he said. The UK was on decent trajectory before all this kicked off, he said, but now companies just are not investing as they were. Also he had a slightly different view on AI to Bruce, and believed that jobs would inevitably be lost to it – meaning that we’d be moving into a future where there were fewer taxable workers, leading to a decrease in public money. He wasn’t all doom and gloom though, pointing out that despite all these hugly significant recent events (covid, changes of govements, war etc!) the UK system has never broken. Throughout everything the UK has shown a stable resilience.
Next to speak was Emily Norton, chair of the AHDB (Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board) who are the levy board which represents farmers, growers and others in the supply chain. She framed her presentation around what she saw as the three macro-trends that are influencing farming and farmer’s confidence now. She argued these were environmental regulations; food security; and farmer sentiment. On this last one, she summed up the up the current mood of farmers as “resigned”! A huge part of this, Emily said, is the imbalance of return at the farm gate – with those tasked with providing our food seeing high costs and high risks, but with low returns. Farming needs to be investable again she said, with mechanisms put in place to cope with volatility and to share the risk throughout the supply chain – not leaving all the burden on farmers themselves.
The final speaker of the session was Dame Angela Eagle DBE MP, minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs. Giving the government’s viewpoint, she said that we’re in a crucial period time where we need to be innovative to empower change. Stressing that food security is part of national security, she told the manufacturer representatives in the room that it is crucial that businesses like theirs are successful for the good of the country and that the government has various schemes in place to help with this. She said that in the past the agri-tech and farming sectors had been taken for granted, but this is no longer the case, with a strategic vision for the future a priority.
Following lunch, incoming president Chris Meacock made a speech where he stressed how important it was to raise the profile of the industry amongst young people. He said their were many routes into a career in the land based industries, but still not enough people were aware of the opportunities it afforded. He said the sector does have good momentum through schemes such as the AEA’s We Are Landbased, but it was vital that this was maintained. He also called on all the employers in the room to acts as guides for new recruits to help develop their talents, so they could reach their full potential in the industry.
Chris made his speech, not only in front of the 200 or so conference attendees, but also in front a surprise special guest who had arrived – Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal. Once Chris had finished speaking, HRH made her way to the lectern and addressed the room for around 10 minutes. She thanked everyone for the vital work they all do and praised agricultural engineers for being able to spot which ideas may just be a trend and which may make a real difference to society. HRH stressed just how important it is to introduce the concept of engineering to children at young, primary school age to make the concept something to aspire to. She told everyone that their present was busy, but their future will be even busier. Thank you for looking ahead with such positivity, she concluded.
I’d like to congratulate the AEA for putting on such a valuable and enjoyable programme this week. I’m sure all who attended could reflect on benefiting from some quality insight as they made their way home (or as they headed around the corner to the Westminster Arms!).
