AHDB TO LAUNCH OWN SELF CERTIFICATION SCHEME

[neilo]

Sorry I disagree. It’s easily proven this corruption is NOT farmer related. This corruption is within the gravy train quango’s.

Nonsense. If mud is thrown at the industry, some will stick. The NFU, that you claim is full of corruption, is run by farmers after all.

Tesco had nothing to do with horsemeat getting into Lasagnes, but with a dodgy supplier to one of their suppliers committing fraud. Plenty on here still associate that fraud with Tesco though.

 

[warksfarmer]

Nonsense. If mud is thrown at the industry, some will stick. The NFU, that you claim is full of corruption, is run by farmers after all.

Tesco had nothing to do with horsemeat getting into Lasagnes, but with a dodgy supplier to one of their suppliers committing fraud. Plenty on here still associate that fraud with Tesco though.

If you think the Nfu is run by farmers then god help the industry. £21 million a year on wages and only 1/5 of its membership is actually farmers.

 

[farmerm]

AIC hold the keys to the mills though? Unless an AHDB certification standard makes growers jumps though most of the same hoops as Red Tractor then AIC could simply choose not to recognise it as an acceptable assurance scheme.....

 

[neilo]

If you think the Nfu is run by farmers then god help the industry. £21 million a year on wages and only 1/5 of its membership is actually farmers.

Firstly, I've yet to see any evidence for your 1/5 figure, and I find it very hard to believe. As to the salaries, do you think the lobbyists, analysts and advisers work for free?

I take it someone at the NFU snubbed you at some time. You seem to have an unhealthy amount of venom towards them, so much so that you'd soil our industry's reputation to try to get one over on them?

 

[SilliamWhale]

Nonsense. If mud is thrown at the industry, some will stick. The NFU, that you claim is full of corruption, is run by farmers after all.

Tesco had nothing to do with horsemeat getting into Lasagnes, but with a dodgy supplier to one of their suppliers committing fraud. Plenty on here still associate that fraud with Tesco though.

I don't think it is?

 

[Grass And Grain]

Many aspects of NROSO are a waste of time or pain in the arse, and more freeloading off the back of our industry BUT Lets not give RT any excuses to say without them we have lower standards.
Lets try and get control as a priority and aid the demise of RT.

AHDB are the vehicle for this, and as the merchants/users collect and pay some levy too, they should be equally pleased to see the end of RT. AIC will be putting massive pressure on all industry to try and stop this, so we should avoid any dilution of all the things we currently do and abide to with UK law.
#self declaration

AIC hold the keys to the mills though? Unless an AHDB certification standard makes growers jumps though most of the same hoops as Red Tractor then AIC could simply choose not to recognise it as an acceptable assurance scheme.....

I agree AHDB need to consult with AIC. AHDB are a heavyweight and command respect, so are perfectly placed to do this. It fits their remit perfectly.

Personally I'd go with including NRoSO, as it helps show the grain was grown to the best pesticide application standards.

This isn't no assurance. It's a method of assurance which sits somewhere between RT and imports standards, providing a slightly different and better assurance than imports currently do.

Over import standards we will have better traceability, only UK approved pesticides, NSTS sprayers, PA1 and PA2 operators, NRoSO operators, mycotoxin risk assessments. We can even upload a photo of our mass balance calc to a system to access biofuel markets.

The difference is we won't be paying RT. AHDB can negotiate the deal with AIC and oilseed crushers etc. , print the declaration boxes on the passports, cheap and chearful system to upload our mass balance calc to.

Will cost peanuts, the small cost being paid for by AHDB out of our levy, gives us some sort of reasonably equivalent market access to imports by a method which works for Individual UK sized growers.

 

[warksfarmer]

Firstly, I've yet to see any evidence for your 1/5 figure, and I find it very hard to believe. As to the salaries, do you think the lobbyists, analysts and advisers work for free?

I take it someone at the NFU snubbed you at some time. You seem to have an unhealthy amount of venom towards them, so much so that you'd soil our industry's reputation to try to get one over on them?

‘’When we consider their inflated membership claims in relation to the whole UK industry we see just how unrepresentative the NFU council actually is. There are, in fact, some 212,000 UK holdings. NFU membership is only 26% of these. The truly astounding misrepresentation is that the NFU claim the number of holdings to be the number of farmers. The NFU’s membership is only 19% of the 294,000 registered commercial British farmers and a mere 11% of the recorded 476,000 farming workforce. A far cry from the "more than 70% of farmers".
... What is certain is the NFU is not anywhere close to representing the two thirds of farmers it implies – less than a fifth at best’’

Pages 104-107

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/nfu%20an%20english%20agribusiness%20lobby%20group.pdf

And nobody has snubbed me at the Nfu. They are just extremely poor at their job. They are bad for U.K. agriculture and actively act against U.K. farmers for gravy train benefit.

 

[simon w]

I think this idea of involving the AHDB could be workable, but would prefer to see the AHDB wound up after all their broken promises. May be that is a goal to far, after all a decision on pots and hort sectors is still awaited and they are trying to avoid a vote for cereal next year. It is a chance for them to show they are working for us and listening to us as they keep saying, so I will vote in favour to avoid a long and protracted war. I still think I will cancel my NFU subs next year as they have not taken up any of our complaints and seem to be working against my interest.

 

[warksfarmer]

I think this idea of involving the AHDB could be workable, but would prefer to see the AHDB wound up after all their broken promises. May be that is a goal to far, after all a decision on pots and hort sectors is still awaited and they are trying to avoid a vote for cereal next year. It is a chance for them to show they are working for us and listening to us as they keep saying, so I will vote in favour to avoid a long and protracted war. I still think I will cancel my NFU subs next year as they have not taken up any of our complaints and seem to be working against my interest.

You should cancel it tomorrow and tell them like the hundreds of others that are doing so. These bozo’s need to know we’ve had enough of the collusion and fraud going on behind the scenes.

 

[legin]

NFU DON'T CARE. Yet!!

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

If it's going to be paid for out of the levy we all pay sounds a good idea, not keen on any extra cost though

The whole point of this idea is to start to reduce unnecessary cost on farms in a post subsidy world. There isn't going to be so much free money floating around for hangers on to help themselves to.

Farm assurance is something that farmers pay for, means nothing and buyers don't need, as demonstrated by how they buy imported grain. Totally unnecessary cost.

Ahdb are going to have to man up in the post Brexit world. At the moment they are a cost of production. Do we need them? Debateable, £10 or £11 million is a lot of money, they at least do something for the money, unlike the dead tractor which is more like £17 million (a guess, anybody know the actual figure?) AHDB sorting out their own equal to imports passport (all it needs) to compete with the dead tractor would be a good start and gain them a lot of votes in a referendum on whether we want to keep spending the £10 or £11 million as well.

 

[warksfarmer]

The whole point of this idea is to start to reduce unnecessary cost on farms in a post subsidy world. There isn't going to be so much free money floating around for hangers on to help themselves to.

Farm assurance is something that farmers pay for, means nothing and buyers don't need, as demonstrated by how they buy imported grain. Totally unnecessary cost.

Ahdb are going to have to man up in the post Brexit world. At the moment they are a cost of production. Do we need them? Debateable, £10 or £11 million is a lot of money, they at least do something for the money, unlike the dead tractor which is more like £17 million (a guess, anybody know the actual figure?) AHDB sorting out their own equal to imports passport (all it needs) to compete with the dead tractor would be a good start and gain them a lot of votes in a referendum on whether we want to keep spending the £10 or £11 million as well.

@AHDB Cereals and Oilseeds @AHDB News

take note of the above post! Your cards have been marked. Act to survive or remain silent to disappear into the history books.

 

[Grass And Grain]

The whole point of this idea is to start to reduce unnecessary cost on farms in a post subsidy world. There isn't going to be so much free money floating around for hangers on to help themselves to.

Farm assurance is something that farmers pay for, means nothing and buyers don't need, as demonstrated by how they buy imported grain. Totally unnecessary cost.

Ahdb are going to have to man up in the post Brexit world. At the moment they are a cost of production. Do we need them? Debateable, £10 or £11 million is a lot of money, they at least do something for the money, unlike the dead tractor which is more like £17 million (a guess, anybody know the actual figure?) AHDB sorting out their own equal to imports passport (all it needs) to compete with the dead tractor would be a good start and gain them a lot of votes in a referendum on whether we want to keep spending the £10 or £11 million as well.

Think there's 17,000 RT cereal farmers. So if we say a conservative £1,000 each compliance costs. With all the management time involved, some would say it costs more than that. 17,000 × £1,000 = £17m.

vs feed imports are accepted with a pesticide declaration. What's the betting they try to remove the pesticide declaration method now we're asking to use it for UK grain?

 

[warksfarmer]

Think there's 17,000 RT cereal farmers. So if we say a conservative £1,000 each compliance costs. With all the management time involved, some would say it costs more than that. 17,000 × £1,000 = £17m.

vs feed imports are accepted with a pesticide declaration. What's the betting they try to remove the pesticide declaration method now we're asking to use it for UK grain?

212,000 farm holdings in the U.K. 107,000 farmers apparently.

So 17,000 members isn’t great is it.

 

[Grass And Grain]

212,000 farm holdings in the U.K. 107,000 farmers apparently.

So 17,000 members isn’t great is it.

That's for combinable crops.

47,000 cereal farmers (think that's probably England, Scot, Wales, N Ireland).

Some of those 47,000 will grow and feed their own (so won't be AHDB levy payers).

Seem to think 3-4,000 SQC farmers, plus some in N Ireland cereals assurance scheme. So total of just over 20k assured farmers.

My point being that it looks like there are quite a lot of non-assured levy payers, who might be receiving a discounted price for their grain. So AHDB should help them to find a way to access feed mills and better prices?