Red and white diesel and farming operations

sgoti · Apr 5, 2022

Debz1125 said:
Sorry to jump on this post! But could someone clarify for me that a agricultural fencing contractor has to run his tractors on white?? I have tried to order red (which we have done for years) and I’ve been told we now have to run on white?? Thank you so much

the way i understand it, if your doing fencing for agri or forestry its red, if your doing it for equine its white unless they also have sheep witch is fine on red. i can se a lot of prosecutions being thrown out of court because it has so much gray areas

Ffermer Bach · Apr 5, 2022

Two Tone said:
If they can continue to use Red on Golf Courses, I don’t think we need to worry about Environmental work on Farms for the likes of ELMs.

I was just told cutting the cricket pitch has to be on white.

powerontheland · Apr 5, 2022

I

Debz1125 said:
Sorry to jump on this post! But could someone clarify for me that a agricultural fencing contractor has to run his tractors on white?? I have tried to order red (which we have done for years) and I’ve been told we now have to run on white?? Thank you so much

If your doing ag operations you can use red as a contractor.

ollie989898 · Apr 5, 2022

Ffermer Bach said:
I was just told cutting the cricket pitch has to be on white.

Horticulture, surely?

ollie989898 · Apr 5, 2022

Simon Chiles said:
I’m not certain about the intricacies of AD plants but you might need to consider this from the MoA :-
This does not include:

household furniture or fittings

supplies required for domestic use

organic waste for disposal on agricultural land

I think that both you and I would consider sewage sludge as being a fertiliser but that is always white so I should imagine digestate was too. I had a call from someone who was using Red to spread sewage sludge and got caught. The fine was so large he had to make 8 blokes redundant, sell his machinery and his house. It’s important to get it right.

Wait a minute, you are saying that a contractor/spreading gang can't go from farm to farm with tractors/spreaders and a digger on a low loader all running on red diesel as they are loading up sewage and spreading it on farmland?

I appreciate that the water companies carting the stuff in trucks from the works to the farm have to be on white, but the spreader crews also?

Two Tone · Apr 5, 2022

Ffermer Bach said:
I was just told cutting the cricket pitch has to be on white.

Whoever told you that sounds like they like to stir a bit of shite.
Like one of those law-abiding-barstewards that drive at 20 in a 30 zone.
I’ve got a field called Cricket Pitch. I’ll not be using white to cut that!

ollie989898 · Apr 5, 2022

Two Tone said:
Whoever told you that sounds like they like to stir a bit of shite.
Like one of those law-abiding-barstewards that drive at 20 in a 30 zone.
I’ve got a field called Cricket Pitch. I’ll not be using white to cut that!

Another entry for your TFF vocabulary books today class, entry 43: 'law-abiding-bar-stewards'.

Goweresque · Apr 5, 2022

Two Tone said:
Whoever told you that sounds like they like to stir a bit of shite.
Like one of those law-abiding-barstewards that drive at 20 in a 30 zone.
I’ve got a field called Cricket Pitch. I’ll not be using white to cut that!

Sadly its correct. For some reason golf courses are totally exempt and can run on red for all their operations, but for other sports only clubs that have CASC status (this stands for Community Amateur Sports Club, and you have to be registered with HMRC to be one, which involves a lot of paperwork many small sports clubs won't want to get involved in) may use red on their grounds. Any other sports ground has to use white. Why they couldn't have just exempted all sports facilities I don't know.

Poncherello1976 · Apr 5, 2022

To answer @Debz1125 question. As long as you are doing Ag fencing red is fine, if that is all you do. If you start doing any domestic/non ag fencing you need white, but you need to make sure there is no sign of the red in the tank otherwise you could be had. Hire companies are now saying all their machines will be using white and need to be filled back with white. If I hire something on the farm for a day or 2 then I must not put red in even though I am using it for Ag. I will be charged a cleaning fee!!
As for amateur sports pitches I think they can still use red. Looks like professional clubs need to use white!

Copied from HMRC website:

2.2 Vehicles

The types of special vehicles that may use rebated diesel are:

vehicles designed to operate on a railway
agricultural vehicles
special vehicles
unlicensed, including SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification) vehicles

But only when they’re being used for qualifying purposes, for example:

for agriculture, horticulture, aquatic farming or forestry
on land maintained by a community amateur sports club (CASC)
on a golf course or driving range
on land occupied by a travelling fair or travelling circus

Not all the qualifying purposes apply to all the vehicle types.

You should check that your vehicle, when being used for a particular purpose, is entitled to use rebated diesel.

Specific detail

Ffermer Bach · Apr 5, 2022

Goweresque said:
Sadly its correct. For some reason golf courses are totally exempt and can run on red for all their operations, but for other sports only clubs that have CASC status (this stands for Community Amateur Sports Club, and you have to be registered with HMRC to be one, which involves a lot of paperwork many small sports clubs won't want to get involved in) may use red on their grounds. Any other sports ground has to use white. Why they couldn't have just exempted all sports facilities I don't know.

my cousin plays cricket, and said the fellow who maintains the pitch is a stickler for following the rules, so my cousin asked me if I wanted to buy the 100 gallons of red they have in their garage, I said, depends on the price!

Poncherello1976 · Apr 5, 2022

Goweresque said:
Sadly its correct. For some reason golf courses are totally exempt and can run on red for all their operations, but for other sports only clubs that have CASC status (this stands for Community Amateur Sports Club, and you have to be registered with HMRC to be one, which involves a lot of paperwork many small sports clubs won't want to get involved in) may use red on their grounds. Any other sports ground has to use white. Why they couldn't have just exempted all sports facilities I don't know.

Sorry! Missed the bit about it being a CASC!
Bugger that will be lots of clubs that are meant to use white then!

Two Tone · Apr 5, 2022

I’ll bet that before too long, they’ll tell you that if you put red into a diesel powered lawnmower or digger, it’ll bugger the engine up.

Steevo · Apr 5, 2022

sgoti said:
the way i understand it, if your doing fencing for agri or forestry its red, if your doing it for equine its white unless they also have sheep witch is fine on red. i can se a lot of prosecutions being thrown out of court because it has so much gray areas

A bit woolly you mean...?

Forkdriver · Apr 5, 2022

Isn't it heart warming to know that we have less red tape since Brexit, and I voted for it

oldoaktree · Apr 5, 2022

There’s a contractor doing some willow chopping locally - what’s he supposed to use ?

Old Tup · Apr 6, 2022

In the local filling station this afternoon….in comes a new Kramer loader….pulls up at the White Diesel pump and proceeds to fill up

Guessing either he was delivering it for a demo….or to an non Agri customer…dealer is half a mile up the road.

Highashgrange · Apr 6, 2022

Goweresque said:
The new rules on red and white diesel use come in soon, on the 1st of April. Obviously farming has still has a concession to use red. But to what extent will some machines/operations that take place on a farm require white from now on? Quite a lot of things that happen on a farm are not purely agricultural in nature. Quite a lot are of a construction/civil engineering type - digging ditches, repairing roads & tracks, laying concrete, preparing sites, erecting buildings, even fencing possibly.

So if a farm has machines like 360 excavators, backhoes and telehandlers, should they be operating on white if the work being done is not purely agricultural? For example, one can argue that combining a field is purely agricultural, in that you can never be doing it and it not be agricultural, harvesting is a fundamental part of food production. So a combine can always be on red. Whereas digging out ditches is not in and of itself agricultural. You could be digging ditches on a construction site and therefore need white. Equally fencing in and of itself is not always agricultural, fences are erected for all manner of purposes other than farming. So when these operations take place on a farm, are they agricultural ones or not? Do the machines need red or white? Does it make a difference if the farmer is doing the work himself, or is employing contractors? One assumes that if you have a new shed erected the contractor's equipment will need to be on white. So does the same apply to the farmer erecting his own shed? How far down the rabbit hole are HMRC going to go? Are we going to see HMRC turning up and dipping machinery and fining people based on what that machine was doing at that point in time rather than where it was (ie on a farm)?

Another point as ELMS increasingly kicks in is whether environmental work counts as farming? Does topping your wild bird cover count as farming, if no food is being produced? Or drilling it for that matter? After all by definition ELMS is paying for 'public goods' not food, so is it farming any more?

I guess my point is this - has any comprehensive definition of what constitutes 'agriculture' been provided with regards to the new rules? Or are we going to face massive uncertainty for the next decade or more as HMRC push the envelope of what is and what is not allowed?

Everything we do is agricultural so I really don’t care about this silly rule change. Even if I did put white diesel into my utv to go and spray somebody’s pony paddock and got caught by hmrc while doing it, unless I’d changed the entire fuel system then they’ll be traces of Red diesel in the system from when I’ve legitimately used it on Red to check livestock. Stupid rule and they haven’t got the man power to police it at farm level. They’ll audit the fuel suppliers to see who’s buying red and if it’s a farm address they won’t turn up.

jamj · Apr 6, 2022

Roger Perry said:
What is the difference in price between ag fuel and road fuel in UK these days..?

Prices are changing so rapidly it’s hard to be exact.
As a guide I would say £0.50/litre.

teslacoils · Apr 6, 2022

Tankering food waste digestate? Red or white?

mo! · Apr 6, 2022

teslacoils said:
Tankering food waste digestate? Red or white?

Depends, if you are moving it from the AD plant to a store then white. If moving it to a field to spread it (ie. an agricultural operation), red.

Red and white diesel and farming operations

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