AIC at 20: Responding to the fallout from Russia's war in Ukraine
As AIC marks 20 years as the UK agri-supply industry’s leading trade association, we're looking back at some of its greatest achievements since it was founded in 2003.
Each week throughout 2023, we’ll explore a major achievement where AIC represented its Member businesses, promoted the benefits of modern commercial agriculture in the UK, and supported collaboration throughout the foodchain.
This week we’re revisiting how AIC responded to the widespread disruption caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.
Mitigating major disruption
From the moment that the war broke out in February 2022, there were stark and far-reaching implications for global trade and production costs. AIC was at the centre of information and intelligence sharing with UK Government and ministers.
The rapid descent into armed conflict meant the team at AIC had to work quickly, making sure that clear and concise messages were shared with our Member businesses and the wider industry.
In daily conversations with Government departments, officials relied on AIC information and briefings to help inform major policy decisions being made at pace across all Whitehall and devolved administrations.
Nearly year on from the start of the conflict, members of the AIC team remain in regular contact with MPs and peers, ministers and their special advisers.
Keeping government briefed
A vital part of this engagement with the Government has been the AIC’s written briefings, which are based on the information we receive from our Member businesses and the EU associations that AIC is a part of.
These briefings are shared with key contacts in Whitehall and have proven to be a highly valuable source of information as Government responds to the widespread disruption caused by the war.
Given the unprecedented rise in the wholesale price of gas and the knock-on effects that this had for fertiliser production, AIC also stepped up the frequency of contact with all of the main UK farming unions and associations.
This was important to help the wider farming sector understand what was happening across the agrisupply sector as a consequence of the Ukraine invasion.
Briefing sessions with farming unions have been essential in tackling misinformation and raising awareness of the challenges faced by the agrisupply industry, and these regular meetings are set to continue for the foreseeable future.
After almost 12 months of war AIC maintains its close contact with Members to monitor concerns, which aid our ongoing conversations with UK Government, as well as our European trade associations - COCERAL and FEFAC - and the European Commission.
Watch the video below to find out more about AIC and the work it does on behalf of its Members.
Make sure you're following AIC on Twitter and LinkedIn for regular updates.
Visit the AIC at 20 webpage for more content like this.
Authors
Oli Hill
As Head of Communications, Oli creates and oversees the content published on AIC's website, emails, Member briefings, print publications, and social media. A qualified multimedia journalist, he previously spent six years working at Farmers Weekly magazine as a Senior Reporter on the arable team, and latterly as Community Editor. More recently he was Communications Manager at Red Tractor.
