Background
The National Farmers' Union represents the farmers and growers of England and Wales. Its central objective is to promote successful and socially responsible agriculture and horticulture, while ensuring the long term viability of rural communities.

The NFU is undergoing significant changes as its original mandate from its membership, to represent the sector to government, is weakened due to the simplification of the subsidy system and the influence of the EU.

This problem has been faced by all trade bodies, in both the public and private sectors, as their mandate for collective action is changed.

The NFU therefore needed to strengthen its relationship with its membership and invited Allman Horrocks Consulting to conduct a survey of members.

We were also asked to review the agricultural services market in order to determine whether there were any opportunities for NFU to develop new services.

Project Summary
Our approach incorporated three aspects of research. Initially, face to face focus group discussions were facilitated based on an agreed discussion guide, within three NFU regions, conducted with the regional directors and two group secretaries for each region.

Additionally, desk research was carried out to investigate the market and providers of rural consultancy services within the UK.

The findings of the initial discussions and desk research contributed to the development of a questionnaire for conducting telephone interviews with a representative group of NFU members.

The results were collated and the initial analysis was presented as key assertions, which were then used to drive discussions with representative groups of NFU members and regional officers.

Benefits
The project enabled NFU to focus on the requirements of members and rationalise its services in line with these, capitalising on the recognised brand equity of the NFU.

Our approach was very interactive and this was highly valued by all those involved in the process.

NFU will continue with similar workshops in future. We are still working with NFU to support them in implementing our recommendations.