Latest news:

• The Task Force has now published its interim report. See further information below or visit the interim report page.
• The note of the 1 March Task Force meeting has been added to the meetings page.
• The date of the open stakeholder meeting has been changed to the morning of 7 June 2012. Further details including how to register to attend are available on the meetings page.

The Natural Environment White Paper announced the creation of a peat task force to explore how to overcome barriers to further reducing peat use in horticulture. Since then the Task Force has broadened its remit to that of putting the horticultural sector on a long-term sustainable footing by ensuring that all of the growing media (or substrate) used in horticulture is sustainable. To reflect this change of emphasis, it is now operating under the working title of the Sustainable Growing Media Task Force.

The Task Force has now published its interim report detailing progress to date on its programme of work. No attempt has been made to draw together the conclusions of individual projects or across the programme as a whole, except in the Chairman’s foreword (reflecting his personal views). This will be done in the June report. This is an ambitious programme of work and many projects will need to continue beyond the end of June and may, indeed, not make substantial further progress between now and then. This is not seen as a significant concern as long as momentum is maintained after June.

Projects P1 and P12 are defining the environmental and sustainability issues that need to be addressed and the other challenges that the horticultural sector will face by 2030. These projects are closely linked and will provide the narrative for transformational changes required in the sector by 2030. Any changes to the substrates used in horticulture must at least solve our agreed environmental problems and should not create new ones.

Projects P3 and P4 are focusing on how to define and measure the sustainability of growing media. This will be crucial to ensuring that alternatives and solutions found by the industry are sustainable in the future and that choices are based on best available evidence. Fundamental to this are the issues of performance (P7), use within commercial operations and price (P8).

Other projects are covering the role of public policy – both in protecting and restoring peat bogs irrespective of the source of the pressure they face (P2) and in ensuring that policy supports the move to sustainable growing media (P6) – and how messages are communicated to consumers (P9).

The Task Force will be setting out a roadmap for sustainable growing media use in the horticultural sector, which will be submitted to the Minister for Natural Environment and Fisheries in June 2012.