Farmers Weekly : Non-assured growers should get access to feed mills, says Red Tractor

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
Reference, Philip Case, Farmers Weekly. See link below to article.
FW doing good non-biased journalism again, sticking up for UK farmers and equivalent market access (y)


Imports can access feed mills via the gatekeeper (non audited assurance) route.

Now UK grain can ALSO access feed mills via non farm level audited assurance. See FW article.

Imports also access human consumption markets via the gatekeeper route.

Now this precedent has been set for feed mills, the same gatekeeper access should now be possible when sellimg to human consumption mills and crushers.

Hopefully individual mills, as well as UK Flour Millers, Maltsters Association of Great Britain, biscuit, breakfast cereal and SCOPA (oilseed crushers) will consult with AHDB to help form a new assurance standard to give fair market access to UK farmers.

This standard is coming to the marketplace, so we hope processors will engage to make sure they don't miss out on purchasing opportunities.

This isn't "no assurance".

This is "better assurance" - in a way which gives us improved competitiveness to our import competitors.

Independently audited assurance schemes such as those that currently exist in the UK have inherent weaknesses. Everyone presumes that 12 month audited assurance is a fantastic industry leading standard. But it's not.

A non-conformance or suspension is only identified on the day of the audit. The farmer has 28 days to retrospectively correct that failure. YOU CANNOT RETROSPECTIVELY CORRECT A FOOD SAFETY FAILURE. It's pulling the wool over the eyes of the purchaser and the consumer.

Do farmers, mills and food brands want to be associated with that? It will affect the reputation of our grain.

We suggest AHDB developes an assured digital passport to prevent damaging the reputation of grain producers and to improve market access for levy payers. It will work in REAL TIME. That's far superior to 1 audit every 365 days.

  • NSTS certificate expires, the system flags it up.
  • Want to sell grain for harvest movement. Not until your mycotoxin risk assessment is completed.
  • etc.
It will only look at food safety. Nimble, cheaper to comply with, instant, improved competitiveness and same market access as imports, better.

  • Controlled by AHDB = in the hands of levy payers.
  • Not run by a third party private company.
  • Not out of control.
#level playing field


P.S. AHDB has been listening to growers, and listening to the concept of setting this up. The digital passport framework is perfectly placed to facilitate this.

Thank you to Martin Grantley-Smith, (AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds Strategy Director) for all his hard work to date.

•••A digital system is our suggested method of gaining gatekeeper access. It is up to the industry to decide how or what can best work for the UK grain trade structure•••
 
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Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
This means you WILL NOT NEED RED TRACTOR farm assurance to access feed mill markets (we're working on human consumption markets as well).

With 47,000 cereal growers, but currently not many more than 20,000 assured farmers in the UK, this opens up markets for a huge number of farmers.
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
Current Gatekeeper (GK) schemes for imports revolve around laboratory testing, and they're designed to work for large shipments.

Imports are grown outside of our UK legislative framework, with pesticides not licensed in the UK. Therefore lab testing is sensible.

Our grain is grown WITHIN the UK legislative framework, only with pesticides licensed in the UK.

Therefore we do not need to do laboratory testing (same reason that Rt Grain does not need lab testing) to access markets. We have the UK risk based system of ensuring grain is within max pesticide residue and other parameters.

We understand purchasers might want some assurance that grain has been grown to good standards. We need a system which is appropriate for a 29t load, not a 29,000 tonne shipment.

We believe an AHDB digital assured passport system can provide a good level of food safety assurance to our customers.

A system like this can deal with multiple tiers. Level 1 might be satisfactory for many mills. Some mills may prefer level 2.

This provides an opportunity for a price premium, depending on the assurance level. The premium will be found by the free marketplace, and will be determined by supply and demand.

Farmers and mills will be free to choose which standard they wish to use.
 

T C

Member
Location
Nr Kelso
Current Gatekeeper (GK) schemes for imports revolve around laboratory testing, and they're designed to work for large shipments.

Imports are grown outside of our UK legislative framework, with pesticides not licensed in the UK. Therefore lab testing is sensible.

Our grain is grown WITHIN the UK legislative framework, only with pesticides licensed in the UK.

Therefore we do not need to do laboratory testing (same reason that Rt Grain does not need lab testing) to access markets. We have the UK risk based system of ensuring grain is within max pesticide residue and other parameters.

We understand purchasers might want some assurance that grain has been grown to good standards. We need a system which is appropriate for a 29t load, not a 29,000 tonne shipment.

We believe an AHDB digital assured passport system can provide a good level of food safety assurance to our customers.

A system like this can deal with multiple tiers. Level 1 might be satisfactory for many mills. Some mills may prefer level 2.

This provides an opportunity for a price premium, depending on the assurance level. The premium will be found by the free marketplace, and will be determined by supply and demand.

Farmers and mills will be free to choose which standard they wish to use.
I really like the idea of digital passports.
However the trail of them a few years ago was not a success.
One comment was that there is only so much info you can get on an A4 sheet, limiting the potential for it to grow arms and legs.
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
I really like the idea of digital passports.
However the trail of them a few years ago was not a success.
One comment was that there is only so much info you can get on an A4 sheet, limiting the potential for it to grow arms and legs.
The info might not be all on the one sheet. It might be on a backend system.

Just the status on front end. Level 1 compliant , level 2 compliant.

This is just our suggestion.

The point is the requirement to be RT assured is going to be removed.

AHDB now need to work out the best solution to a non-RT future.

Early days. Final solution to be determined.

Or maybe it's a paper passport with a digital backend. With your compliance level stamped on the front.

Go to system, fill in your name, address etc ONCE ONLY, system auto populates your compliance status, print.

As I say, just our suggestion. Up to AHDB how they develop the best gatekeeper solution for us.
 

tullah

Member
Location
Linconshire
This means you WILL NOT NEED RED TRACTOR farm assurance to access feed mill markets (we're working on human consumption markets as well).

With 47,000 cereal growers, but currently not many more than 20,000 assured farmers in the UK, this opens up markets for a huge number of farmers.
Does this take effect from today?
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
How are existing schemes going to cope when farmers just abandon it en masse?

They can either sit and do nothing, or do some actual work and try get a premium price for their members - something they've always failed at.

Then, to become attractive to farmers, they can bin any daft rules they've introduced unnecessarily.

And they can try to defend their scheme to mills. Tricky when they allow farmers to correct food safety failures retrospectively.
 

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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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