Fair play to FW for tackling AIC issue head on.

[Grass And Grain]

definitely the right thing to do Steve

i was bought up to give bully’s a bloody nose ! not just accept their unacceptable behaviour

Feels like attacking people who you'd really expect should be on your team, but in reality have been getting us to pay their salaries.

I'm hopeful it will pressurise AHDB in the short-term, but get a better long term result for farmers, and an AHDB who come out of it like heroes.

It does run the risk of AHDB getting annihilated if farmers make the link. I'm not sure who's fault that would be - RT, AIC, NFU or AHDB. I note in the podcast Paul mentioned the ballot.

Minds will have been concentrated, and I'm guessing more urgency to appease everyone. Surely a compromise can be reached.

All we want is acceptance of a tick-box on a passport, hust like the imports. What a fuss it's causing.

 

[teslacoils]

Given the RT / aic / NFU live-in, I'd say big kudos to fw for taking the farmer view. We don't pay for adverts / sponsor awards / have "fact finding" dinners - we just buy it and do the graft.

 

[Grass And Grain]

I can't take credit for this video. I've not got the brains or skill set to make something like this, and it was just meant to be a bit of fun for those in the know, but apt to post it again in this thread. Don't sue me, not my work. Here's the youtube link...

 

[principal skinner]

Would love to be a fly on the wall at RT and and NFU Monday morning

 

[ajd132]

Given the RT / aic / NFU live-in, I'd say big kudos to fw for taking the farmer view. We don't pay for adverts / sponsor awards / have "fact finding" dinners - we just buy it and do the graft.

It’s great to see the FW doing proper investigative journalism. We need to people to pay for the mag/journalism through subscription, not through advertising . (Very difficult I know)

 

[Clive]

Feels like attacking people who you'd really expect should be on your team, but in reality have been getting us to pay their salaries.

I'm hopeful it will pressurise AHDB in the short-term, but get a better long term result for farmers, and an AHDB who come out of it like heroes.

It does run the risk of AHDB getting annihilated if farmers make the link. I'm not sure who's fault that would be - RT, AIC, NFU or AHDB. I note in the podcast Paul mentioned the ballot.

Minds will have been concentrated, and I'm guessing more urgency to appease everyone. Surely a compromise can be reached.

All we want is acceptance of a tick-box on a passport, hust like the imports. What a fuss it's causing.

they are not on our side- they represent no-one other than themselves

just like politicians I’m sure they are good people and their careers begin witn the right intentions but eventually the power / money and disconnection from what they should represent takes over and corrupts

 

[Lincsman]

If an organic beef producer cannot feed " normal" hay to his animals and stay organic, why is it a red tractor approved farm can buy and feed non red tractor animal feed and still be red tractor assured?

Stock farmers need to have Red tractor paper trail of all the ingredients in that sack of animal feed, or refuse it.

 

[Grass And Grain]

they are not on our side- they represent no-one other than themselves

just like politicians I’m sure their careers begin witn the right intentions but eventually the power / money and disconnection from what the should represent takes over.

In stark contrast, we have good people on here fighting a cause purely because they feel it's unjust. Not in it for themselves.

Selfless vs selfish

 

[Clive]

I can't take credit for this video. I've not got the brains or skill set to make something like this, and it was just meant to be a bit of fun for those in the know, but apt to post it again in this thread. Don't sue me, not my work. Here's the youtube link...

that really made me LOL

 

[Grass And Grain]

that really made me LOL

Posted in another thread last week by a forum member. Comedy genius, wasted in farming.

 

[Steevo]

Feels like attacking people who you'd really expect should be on your team, but in reality have been getting us to pay their salaries.

I'm hopeful it will pressurise AHDB in the short-term, but get a better long term result for farmers, and an AHDB who come out of it like heroes.

It does run the risk of AHDB getting annihilated if farmers make the link. I'm not sure who's fault that would be - RT, AIC, NFU or AHDB. I note in the podcast Paul mentioned the ballot.

Minds will have been concentrated, and I'm guessing more urgency to appease everyone. Surely a compromise can be reached.

All we want is acceptance of a tick-box on a passport, hust like the imports. What a fuss it's causing.

It’s putting a lot of pressure on NFU too which is good. They seem to want to be all things to all people…..they make it look like they are standing up for farmers but instead it seems more like misdirection hoping they don’t get found out. Fox in charge of the chicken coop springs to mind.

NFU could have come out of this as heroes too if they had wanted to….

(said as an NFU member)

I want a successful NFU and AHDB. They can both add a lot to my business and there is a place for both of them…..but only if they are customer focused and add value rather than being self-focused.

 

[Grass And Grain]

The more I think about it, the more respect I've got for FW's Philip Case, Hugh Broom and Johann Tasker.

NFU, RT, AIC and AHDB all advertise in FW.

FW could have chosen to avoid this story, but they didn't. It's going to cause a right going on.

AHDB Cereals will be desperate to get a solution, but AHDB part own RT iirc, so they have a clear conflict of interest. So do we believe AHDB would ever suggest dumping RT and doing a tick box on the passport. Now I've realised this, I'm a bit suspicious of the whole situation.

RT won't want to lose 'members'/income.

AIC won't want to upset RT or SQC. Particularly SQC, as AIC are part owners iirc, so they'd be responsible for their own (SQC) reduction in income/members.

NFU will still want to keep this swept under a carpet, keep their heads burried in the sand, hope it was all a bad dream, wake up on Monday and hope everything is better, and avoid all direct public questioning at all cost because they'll look silly having supported more onerous market access requirements for their members vs imports.

Think Hugh and Johann summed it up on podcast. Needs strong leadership and decisive actions, and quickly.

What's the latest. AHDB are going to use levy payers' money to investigate cost involved to assure imports.

Just put a tick-box pesticide declaration on the chuffing passport. Have it done in about half an hour, and will cost nothing.

Meanwhile, RT livestock farmers can mill, mix, and then feed their own grain to their own RT livestock without being grain assured.

What the fudge is the problem with a pesticide declaration fudging tick-box?


Double standards with absolutely no justification.

 

[Steevo]

AHDB are going to use levy payers' money to investigate cost involved to assure imports.

Am I reading that right..?

Why are UK levy payers helping fund research to aid imported products?

 

[Grass And Grain]

Am I reading that right..?

Why are UK levy payers helping fund research to aid imported products?

Questioning my own sanity now. Just checked my emails and can't see where I've got that info from. Been a RT information overload kind of day!

Think you've slightly misunderstood. Think (unless I've gone crazy, which is possible today), AHDB were going to look at what it costs to assure imports with pesticide testing, and compare that to what it costs a UK grower for RT assurance. To determine if an alternative to RT would be economically advantageous for growers.

In my mind, I don't totally get that as being necessary. Imports need pesticide residue testing, because they're using products which aren't licensed here. So there's a reason for the testing. It makes sense.

We're only using UK approved pesticides, therefore we won't need to do the testing, as there's no unlicensed products to test for. Simples. Just as RT grain isn't currently routinely pesticide tested.

So is that a waste of our levy?

 

[Grass And Grain]

Am I reading that right..?

Why are UK levy payers helping fund research to aid imported products?

I wasn't going crazy. It was in the FW article. Here is the relevant text...

An AHDB spokesman said: “An industry group including Red Tractor and AHDB has been meeting over the past couple of months, to try and understand fully what the cost of compliance is for imported grain to meet the required safety checks, in comparison to the cost of Red Tractor assurance. AHDB has committed to fund this work

 

[The Ruminant]

If an organic beef producer cannot feed " normal" hay to his animals and stay organic, why is it a red tractor approved farm can buy and feed non red tractor animal feed and still be red tractor assured?

Stock farmers need to have Red tractor paper trail of all the ingredients in that sack of animal feed, or refuse it.

Well done @Grass And Grain for exposing this.

As a livestock producer who isn’t Red Tractor registered and, therefore, who takes a financial hit whenever I send my cattle to market / abattoir, my question is what are the rules for beef imported into this country?

Does the same situation exist, where I have to jump through hoops or get penalised, whilst Irish and other beef producers simply have to go through a box-ticking exercise?

Does anyone know?

 

[Banana Bar]

Well done Farmers Weekly.
There are so few ways to make a stand against this protection racket.
There can be no way other than cancelling NFU subs, I’ve threatened this numerous times but find zero reason not to cancel at this time.
Its a great pity that the people who should be running the NFU are the ones making a success of running their farm businesses.

BB

 

[Grass And Grain]

My word. Wait until you read this!

Assured Food Standards (RT) is a not-for-profit company, with 6 guarantors. One is AHDB, another is NFU.

Scottish Quality Crops is a company limited by guarantee, one of the members of the company is AIC.

See below web links and screenshots...

Who We Are: The Red Tractor Team - Red Tractor Assurance

Red Tractor is a not-for-profit company created by farmers and industry leaders in 2000.

assurance.redtractor.org.uk

SQC Board of Directors

If AIC were to let us have same feed mill access arrangements as imports, then SQC loses members and income. Remember AIC are one of SQC's owners.

RT would lose members and income. AHDB and NFU are guarantors of AFS.

So when we ask for a tick box declaration, we are met with resistance, but given no valid reason why not.

The water is muddy.

When we've talked to AHDB about a tick box, they've not said no, but have gone down the route of talking to RT. It's got nothing to do with RT. It doesn't need RT's approval.

But if AHDB were to get AIC to allow tick-box declaration, then as guarantors of RT and SQC, AHDB and AIC would have decimated income for the companies they are guarantors for.

Same goes for NFU, hence presumably why the malaise from NFU.

With this conflict of interest, are levy payers ever going to get genuine help from AHDB? I think levy payers are due an explanation from Nicholas Saphir over this.

I could never understand the full reasons for the illogical resistance to a tick-box pesticide declaration. I do now understand why there is resistance.

I smell some rats, and they're not in my RT assured grain store. They're in the offices at AHDB and AIC and NFU.

Meanwhile, farmers get charged millions £££ each year to be forced to be farm assured.

One for the Rogue Traders TV programme.

!!!!! It's a scandal !!!!!

 

[Grass And Grain]

Any of those company guarantors will be hell bent on making sure farmers can't leave their schemes.

These company guarantors are the ones who control the boardrooms.

 

[Grass And Grain]

We want a tick-box pesticide declaration box from AHD, accepted by AIC.

WE WANT IT NOW.