Dispatches - Red Tractor

Heathland · Nov 30, 2021

snarling bee said:
I have been doing that as a matter of course for years anyway.
Of all the things in RT I cannot for the life of me see the problem with this other than giving away the information. How the F do you know how much you have in store or to sell if you are not regularly doing a mass balance. Do you just accept payment from merchants without checking? Have you any idea what you harvested? Don't you do a stocktake for YE accounts? Are your crops a major source of income? Do you count your cattle/sheep daily? Do you ever check your electric meter?
I just don't get it. Are you managing a business or not?

Having a piece of paper to wave in front of RT inspection makes me a sleep a lot better at night,I don't know quite frankly how I've managed without it all these years!
Thank you RT for helping me,because I must be a complete F*ck wit,but my secretary and accountant are more than happy with my management skills thank you.

It's ironic, because I was a broiler bird grower up to a few years ago.
The record keeping was unbelievable,too the point where the paper work seemed more important than the quality of the birds leaving the sheds.
I stop enjoying it, so I backed up.

ajd132 · Nov 30, 2021

JP1 said:
H&S prime example of mission creep

I presume RT consider themselves to be anchoring themselves im to checking all essential items and who can argue against safety

It has nothing to do with food assurance and there’s an official agency responsible

It’s job justification. The NFU by starting this have created a whole new industry feeding off farmers, as if we didn’t have enough of that already.
I cannot for the life of me understand why the NFU are not properly pushing back against the whole charade, everything they have done so far is just the bare minimum lip service to try and appease members but keep the red tractor going.
we have cancelled our membership to the NFU sadly, its way past its sell by date and I cannot see anyone who will change things coming through the ranks, they seem to be carbon copies. I hope I am proven wrong and we can re-join.

DrWazzock · Nov 30, 2021

Heathland said:
Having a piece of paper to wave in front of RT inspection makes me a sleep a lot better at night,I don't know quite frankly how I've managed without it all these years!
Thank you RT for helping me,because I must be a complete F*ck wit,but my secretary and accountant are more than happy with my management skills thank you.

It's ironic, because I was a broiler bird grower up to a few years ago.
The record keeping was unbelievable,too the point where the paper work seemed more important than the quality of the birds leaving the sheds.
I stop enjoying it, so I backed up.

My business partner driven out by RT. Vet health plan at £250 for an hours chat being the last straw. RT has hastened the end of small mixed family farms. Humiliated and driven out hard working folk with years of experience. Hope they are pleased with themselves. The sort of people who rise up through the NFU could never compete with us on the ground so they connive with the grocers to drive us out by trumped up rules and spurious criteria.

Steevo · Nov 30, 2021

ajd132 said:
It’s job justification. The NFU by starting this have created a whole new industry feeding off farmers, as if we didn’t have enough of that already.
I cannot for the life of me understand why the NFU are not properly pushing back against the whole charade, everything they have done so far is just the bare minimum lip service to try and appease members but keep the red tractor going.
we have cancelled our membership to the NFU sadly, its way past its sell by date and I cannot see anyone who will change things coming through the ranks, they seem to be carbon copies. I hope I am proven wrong and we can re-join.

Your post reminded me of the Ex-NFU Red Tape Tsar….

Cereals 2010: Government appoints red tape tsar - Farmers Weekly

The government has announced plans to tackle red tape in farming and has appointed former NFU director general Richard Macdonald to head up a task force

www.fwi.co.uk

ollie989898 · Nov 30, 2021

wellingtonfarmer said:
ea have rejected the idea of a power station fed off chicken muck on outskirts of Hereford.

On what basis?

ollie989898 · Nov 30, 2021

DrWazzock said:
I had the EA here going through my fertiliser records as the phosphates in the watercourse were high. Nothing to see in my records. I pointed out the dozen or so septic tank outlets that discharge straight into the watercourse upstream. Didn’t want to know. They’ll never upset members of the public. Wouldn’t look good. They and their political masters might lose public support.

What exactly are they looking for in your fertiliser records?

'Night of November 18th, dumped 6 x600kg of DAP in River avon'.

Night of December 12th, dumped 12 tonnes lumpy TSP in River Severn. Did it by storm drain outlet so would appear to be sewage'.

ollie989898 · Nov 30, 2021

I defy anyone to tell me RT audits enforce or improve health and safety on farms. That is a lark. The average RT inspector doesn't have a clue about health and safety beyond the need to wear non-slip Doc Marten shoes and a lot of HSE guidance relies upon farms doing a risk assessment. There is no special assurance scheme for people manufacturing plastics or the like. They have to abide by HSE regulations the same as any other business.

And more to the point, I don't know of anyone who wouldn't think to check the temperature of a 2500 tonne heap of grain periodically because they all know as well as their grandfather did that it could get sweaty in a jiffy and be fudged. That being said, if someone wasn't paying attention and their grain went sour, that is their own business and they don't need some ded recktor inspector to tell them what to do with their own grain.

Steevo · Nov 30, 2021

ollie989898 said:
What exactly are they looking for in your fertiliser records?

'Night of November 18th, dumped 6 x600kg of DAP in River avon'.

Night of December 12th, dumped 12 tonnes lumpy TSP in River Severn. Did it by storm drain outlet so would appear to be sewage'.

That’s the waste transfer note you’ve been reading, not the fertiliser records!

ollie989898 · Nov 30, 2021

Steevo said:
That’s the waste transfer note you’ve been reading, not the fertiliser records!

If he did it to improve beaver habitat or wolf spawning grounds he would no doubt have gotten a grant to do it, plus a £12,000 a year consultancy fee and probably a book deal.

JP1 · Dec 1, 2021

Steevo said:
Your post reminded me of the Ex-NFU Red Tape Tsar….

Cereals 2010: Government appoints red tape tsar - Farmers Weekly

The government has announced plans to tackle red tape in farming and has appointed former NFU director general Richard Macdonald to head up a task force

www.fwi.co.uk

Oh yes.

The review that got rid of SoA ‘s , so now I have twice the movement paperwork and passports with extra pages for my cattle that never change ownership yet at the same time every other farmer can move livestock at whim within a 10 mile radius

All the double boundary fencing , vet approval costs etc out the window

You think about it and just shake your head

Yet the Amazonian unidentifiable cattle can still pass through Brazil’s abattoirs ...

DaveGrohl · Dec 1, 2021

snarling bee said:
How the F do you know how much you have in store or to sell if you are not regularly doing a mass balance.
I just don't get it. Are you managing a business or not?

Wtf's a mass balance?

Can't believe I'm still in business without knowing what one is and diligently recording it.....

DaveGrohl · Dec 1, 2021

JP1 said:
RT IS mission creep

FTFY
You're welcome.

Tarw Coch · Dec 1, 2021

DaveGrohl said:
FTFY
You're welcome.

If that’s the answer, what was the question?

Surgery · Dec 1, 2021

Bury the Trash said:
I'm not impressed with the Ea they have twice ignored my reporting of more than one households dirty water from their communal septic tank being discharged to the surface in the middle of our field ,which floods every now and then
So they cant be genuinely interested in dealing pollution.

They are a shower of shite , had them all over me for digging out part of a brook that I never paid a 1k fee for a permit , even had a warrant officer out to inform me if I have cut through a water vole burrow I would be nicked , yet I reported dirty sewage water from a nearby coverted building , multiple flats and a local scrap yard dumping waste oil and antifreeze in ditches that feed said brook and ?uck all was done , seems if more than one person is involved they won’t bother , bunch of lefty Vegan tossers if you ask me.

Bruce Almighty · Dec 1, 2021

DaveGrohl said:
Wtf's a mass balance?

Can't believe I'm still in business without knowing what one is and diligently recording it.....

As far as I'm aware it's a new name for how much crop you have harvested and how much you sell.
I'm sure most of us record yields per field in some way or another so we know how much we have to sell.

I don't believe it's any of Red Tractor's business & I don't think they ask you for it, just "do you do it?"

Of course a pub mass balance could mean a completely different set of figures ?

Tarw Coch · Dec 1, 2021

Surgery said:
They are a shower of shite , had them all over me for digging out part of a brook that I never paid a 1k fee for a permit , even had a warrant officer out to inform me if I have cut through a watergate vole burrow I would be nicked , yet I reported dirty sewage water from a nearby coverted building , multiple flats and a local scrap yard dumping waste oil and antifreeze in ditches that feed said brook and ?uck all was done , seems if more than one person is involved they won’t bother , bunch of lefty Vegan tossers if you ask me.

Depends how much time and effort you want to put into it.
You could write to your MP telling them about it, that you’ve reported it to the EA and no action has been taken.
If MP ain’t interested either then you could take the story to the newspapers/media, sounds like a juicy story, EA and MP not acting on sources of pollution they’ve been made aware of

DaveGrohl · Dec 1, 2021

Bruce Almighty said:
As far as I'm aware it's a new name for how much crop you have harvested and how much you sell.
I'm sure most of us record yields per field in some way or another so we know how much we have to sell.

I don't believe it's any of Red Tractor's business & I don't think they ask you for it, just "do you do it?"

Of course a pub mass balance could mean a completely different set of figures ?

So none of their fekking business in any case then?

ollie989898 · Dec 1, 2021

Why should farmers submit records on what grain they have in store? That is commercially sensitive information. Do you think Microsoft have to tell a quango how many desktop PCs they have in storage right now? Tell them to fudge off.

Humble Village Farmer · Dec 1, 2021

Isn't mass balance a load of Roman Catholics standing on one leg?

Tarw Coch · Dec 1, 2021

It all sounds like mass bollox to me, pretty fitting that it’s a RT requirement then.

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