Concerned about Red Tractor collapse.

traineefarmer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Mid Norfolk
With the cut in funding from AHDB and the pending creation of a new competing scheme, surely RT's days are numbered?

What will that mean for those of us who are signed up for assurance if RT goes under? Will we still be able to market our produce or will the alternative schemes take us on if our membership is still valid?

I'm not flag waving for RT, I'd throw them some chains to help them sink, but we should be considering what such disruption will do to the market and forward plan for such an eventuality.
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
With the cut in funding from AHDB and the pending creation of a new competing scheme, surely RT's days are numbered?

What will that mean for those of us who are signed up for assurance if RT goes under? Will we still be able to market our produce or will the alternative schemes take us on if our membership is still valid?

I'm not flag waving for RT, I'd throw them some chains to help them sink, but we should be considering what such disruption will do to the market and forward plan for such an eventuality.
Just sell your grain without it
RT is not needed
 

traineefarmer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Mid Norfolk
Do you mean there's a risk of paying for farm assurance with no benefit because the scheme's gone bust?
The loss of the membership fee. The waste of time, money and energy of compliance. The disruption if I suddenly have to sign up to a new scheme.

I hope something with more long term prospects is up and running before my renewal.
 

tullah

Member
Location
Linconshire
The loss of the membership fee. The waste of time, money and energy of compliance. The disruption if I suddenly have to sign up to a new scheme.

I hope something with more long term prospects is up and running before my renewal.
Our new farming union is working on it now. Don't throw any more money at this rubbish.
 
The need for assurance will just end overnight. If it doesn’t exist the mills will just carry on without it using U.K. law for things like sprayer MOT and the fact we can’t use banned pesticides like other countries do then their stuff gets imported to us and enters our food chain.

Rumour mill is people are jumping ship from RT already as they don’t want to be connected to the panorama investigation and the potential PPI scandal RT is going to turn out to be.
 
I'd prefer to see a slew of different assurance schemes in the UK, membership of which will be voluntary and on a flat annual fee. They will have to pass the acid test of commerciality as well so no premium will mean no membership.

Likewise, if the mills or buyers think they are going to insist on assurance scheme X then they better well pay a premium for the product or no one will want to supply them.
 

Bald Rick

Moderator
Livestock Farmer
Location
Anglesey
Why ? What replaces it could be even more ridiculous. Let's end assurance altogether.

One has to consider who the drivers are behind assurance.
Can’t be the supermarkets surely as the majority (?) of foodstuffs they stock would not be covered by any assurance scheme over and above food safety standards… can it?
 
One has to consider who the drivers are behind assurance.
Can’t be the supermarkets surely as the majority (?) of foodstuffs they stock would not be covered by any assurance scheme over and above food safety standards… can it?

The drivers behind assurance was the NFU as it was another way of extracting money from their members as well as extracting from farmers who refused to be members of the union. The Nfu set up RT and part own it.

The None Farming Union do not act on behalf of their 15,000 farmers members. They act on behalf of all their other members which are corporates or village folk who have no connection to farming other than watching it out of their rural retreat windows.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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