Paper AEBC 04/17

Update on Non Food Agriculture Workstream

Following the decision taken at the last Commission meeting in York, the non- food agriculture core group have been working on the public engagement exercise looking into public attitudes to various uses of non food agriculture.

It was decided that a specialist qualitative social research company should be employed to carry out the work but the project would be closely scrutinised by the commission members.

A fairly lengthy and involved procurement process has been undertaken and after inviting six bids from external consultants, the core group have offered the contract to Corr Willbourn Research and Development.

Corr Willbourn will be giving a brief presentation at the meeting in which they will outline their proposal and methodology.

It is expected that the public engagement exercise will finish with a comprehensive report by the end of March 2005.