Farm assurance premium

MrNoo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Cirencester
A choice and a premium is essential as per the NFU's principles.
It clearly has no principles, it burdened us with it as well as being part owners of the scheme.
No amount of money would tempt me back. It is an utter scam from top to bottom, assured means nothing from what I have experienced this year so far coming out of RT.
You all need to stop pandering to the Cartel and walk and start your own scheme up and actually have some control over your own scheme instead of some desk jockeys thinking up nonsense rules and regs whilst taking a cut of your money.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
That was my first thought, assurance on cattle isn't too bad.

But,

Vet's herd health plan
I will need to pay for and find time for 'How to inject' course.
Comprehensive record keeping
Feeds are likely to get more expensive
Be available for immediate inspection at any time
Be judged as to whether the whole farm is of 'an acceptable and tidy appearance'.

Isn’t that ‘comprehensive record keeping’ mostly legally required anyway?

The ‘how to inject’ course is £20 to spend a couple of hours in a local pub on a damp, winter’s day, or it was here anyway. Sandwich’s and the first pint were included.
 

texelburger

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Herefordshire
I wouldn't mind paying for assurance as long as we are on a level playing field which we most certainly aren’t. Non assured grain floods into the country with no traceability and is mixed with RT which is scandalous.This imported grain,in many cases,has been treated with pesticides banned in this country,how is that fair ?
Likewise meat is also imported without the same standards and animal welfare we adopt in the UK,this is then sold at a lower price dragging our product down with it.As for milk I can only sympathise with our producers who are stuffed without being members,Voluntary they say,what a joke.
So,in essence, not only does there need to be a large premium for all the draconian measures we have to adopt to be members there also needs to be a major restructuring of the UK assurance schemes to address these inequalities.
 

roscoe erf

Member
Livestock Farmer
It’s a dangerous path. Once a premium is in place see the standards and cost of inspection ramped up so that the premium becomes diminished and just, if you are lucky, covers cost of compliance.
For smaller producers £2/t on cereals or 5p/kg on beef will hardly make it worthwhile and certainly not for the stress involved.
they have learned nothing these farmers its how these thieves got started you take the devils shilling you dance to his tune
 

roscoe erf

Member
Livestock Farmer
Surely there’s a £5/t premium now, or rather a £5 deduction for non-FA generally.
As a small producer of cereals, selling less than 200t (only 80t last year!😢), that’s far from enough to make me consider it.

I only rejoined FA for lamb a few years ago in order to access dw outlets, which were consistently returning £5/hd over the live mart at the time, and to further access a premium contract.
If I was still selling everything live, I wouldn’t bother with FA as the premium is rarely there, although it does mean more potential buyers in times of surplus.
Lamb is relatively easy though, as compliance costs are negligible for most farms (or should be).
not on cattle there isn't not in our local markets anyway
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
The whole problem is that RT didn’t add a clearly identifiable premium to assured grain, it forced a discount on non assured grain. We paid to stand still.
When I receive my payment details for grain there are various deductions for this that and the other but there is never a bonus or reward for the RT effort and that’s what disappoints. It’s as if the trade are saying well, so what? No recognition whatsoever yet they claim it’s an important brand. Well it doesn’t feel like it when you get paid. It just melts into price you get.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Surely there’s a £5/t premium now, or rather a £5 deduction for non-FA generally.
As a small producer of cereals, selling less than 200t (only 80t last year!😢), that’s far from enough to make me consider it.

I only rejoined FA for lamb a few years ago in order to access dw outlets, which were consistently returning £5/hd over the live mart at the time, and to further access a premium contract.
If I was still selling everything live, I wouldn’t bother with FA as the premium is rarely there, although it does mean more potential buyers in times of surplus.
Lamb is relatively easy though, as compliance costs are negligible for most farms (or should be).
The premium you refer to is actually a discount for non assured. Because fa is deemed to be the UK standard, that's what imports (although non assured), are competing with.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
The real insult is paying for somebody to look at our grainstore, spray records etc for someone else's benefit.

I have no problem with a buyer saying can I see your grainstore and spray records or handling system and medicine book. But to pay for the inspection as well?

Spray records and treatment records are legal requirements.

All it needs is a union jack and grown in the UK.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
And do we really need a course on how to inject an animal. I asked my vet how to do it when we went back into cattle. He demonstrated it in about 10 minutes, watched me do a few, job done. It’s in our commercial interest to get it right, so why would you make a mess of it?
Exactly, we've all been shown by the vet at some time
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
And do we really need a course on how to inject an animal. I asked my vet how to do it when we went back into cattle. He demonstrated it in about 10 minutes, watched me do a few, job done. It’s in our commercial interest to get it right, so why would you make a mess of it?

Well no, but it’s not particularly onerous, or expensive, compared to some of the tosh dreamt up for combinables.

Ours was actually very little to do with how to physically inject, and lots of discussion about reduction in antibiotic usage. Considering the number of sheep farmers round here that have still been jabbing every ewe with Oxytet in mid-pregnancy, and who didn’t even know about a vaccine against EAE, then maybe such discussion is needed? :scratchhead:
 

Wombat

Member
BASIS
Location
East yorks
It clearly has no principles, it burdened us with it as well as being part owners of the scheme.
No amount of money would tempt me back. It is an utter scam from top to bottom, assured means nothing from what I have experienced this year so far coming out of RT.
You all need to stop pandering to the Cartel and walk and start your own scheme up and actually have some control over your own scheme instead of some desk jockeys thinking up nonsense rules and regs whilst taking a cut of your money.
The issue is some of us don’t have our own storage and up until recently stores were banned from taking unasured grain to keep the monopoly so few are setup for it now. So we have to have it for that reason
 

Jackov Altraids

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Isn’t that ‘comprehensive record keeping’ mostly legally required anyway?

The ‘how to inject’ course is £20 to spend a couple of hours in a local pub on a damp, winter’s day, or it was here anyway. Sandwich’s and the first pint were included.

I've just been flicking through the new standards and I get the impression there is a significant shift from legal requirements to a paper trail for almost everything.
It's not just a herd/ flock health plan but documented evidence of how you have used it.
It's not just records of what you've done, but records of what you haven't done and why.

It may be only a couple of hours and £20 [I've been quoted much more] but the principle of being taught by someone with a fraction of the experience that I have, is somewhat irksome.

I do really appreciate all replies but would really love more proper replies with respect to proper financial considerations.
Put it the other way, what discount if any, would you be prepared to offer to sell non-RT?

If I need a 10p premium to be RT assured, then in its absence I would happily offer a 5p discount. We need to start a proper system some how.
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
Isn’t that ‘comprehensive record keeping’ mostly legally required anyway?

The ‘how to inject’ course is £20 to spend a couple of hours in a local pub on a damp, winter’s day, or it was here anyway. Sandwich’s and the first pint were included.

Not if it's all conducted via zoom, apparently :confused:
 

roscoe erf

Member
Livestock Farmer
I've just been flicking through the new standards and I get the impression there is a significant shift from legal requirements to a paper trail for almost everything.
It's not just a herd/ flock health plan but documented evidence of how you have used it.
It's not just records of what you've done, but records of what you haven't done and why.

It may be only a couple of hours and £20 [I've been quoted much more] but the principle of being taught by someone with a fraction of the experience that I have, is somewhat irksome.

I do really appreciate all replies but would really love more proper replies with respect to proper financial considerations.
Put it the other way, what discount if any, would you be prepared to offer to sell non-RT?

If I need a 10p premium to be RT assured, then in its absence I would happily offer a 5p discount. We need to start a proper system some how.
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BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
That was my first thought, assurance on cattle isn't too bad.

But,

Membership fee
Vet's herd health plan
I will need to pay for and find time for 'How to inject' course.
Comprehensive record keeping
Feeds are likely to get more expensive
Be available for immediate inspection at any time
Be judged as to whether the whole farm is of 'an acceptable and tidy appearance'.
Unfortunately with cattle we are effectively blackmailed into joining RT, not so much with the store market that we use but with cull cows slaughter houses seem to crucify you if you are not RT. What is wrong is that discounts only apply until there is a shortage, then it does not mater one bit RT or not so it is obviously manipulation of the market which I thought was a criminal offence!
 

tullah

Member
Location
Linconshire
Unfortunately with cattle we are effectively blackmailed into joining RT, not so much with the store market that we use but with cull cows slaughter houses seem to crucify you if you are not RT. What is wrong is that discounts only apply until there is a shortage, then it does not mater one bit RT or not so it is obviously manipulation of the market which I thought was a criminal offence!
You'll see from the threads that the norm is that criminals do not engage in discussion...Not long to go now
 

Granite Farmer

Member
Mixed Farmer
I'm considering dropping out of of beef and lamb assurance having looked at the new booklet. I will remain crop assured however as it is the only reliable way for me to sell surplus grain. Also it is relatively straight forward as all surplus goes to central store anyway. Would rather not be in it though.
 

farmerm

Member
Location
Shropshire
Semantics maybe but a premium can only be achieved where the product or service is uncommon.. as soon as something becomes dominant in the marketplace it becomes the standard and at which point there is a penalty for not meeting the standard rather than any premium for meeting the standard. For a farm assured product to have a premium in the market more than 50% of comparable goods would need to be not farm assured. With farm assured being the dominate position in the industry we are wrong to discuss what premium it offers, we should be farming it in the terms of what the financial penalty is for not being farm assured. As much as I despise it and would love to drop FA I would need to be confident that none FA grain can be sold with less than £2/t penalty over FA grain... unfortunately for that to happen we need a mass exit from FA will sufficient mills coming along with us. At our current low stocking rates sheep I put at 7-10p/kg, I kid myself its less than that in real terms as it is a tax deductible expense....
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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

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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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