Feed Mills / Red tractor grain ?

Pigless

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Do feed mills have to use Red Tractor Approved grain for feeding RTA stock? Grain merchant I sell to is claiming the low Barley price is due to imported wheat and Maize from Russia etc. obviously this has no assurance and is feeding huge amount of RTA stock. Is it right that they only need to include a portion of approved grain to call it approved feed?
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
Don t forget GM :whistle:


and yet that assured mill will give you an assured ticket to go with their product show to your inspector...:confused:


Of course this does mean that their costs are lower and the feed they sell you is cheaper pro rata,.... you cant have it all ways :unsure:

Funny old world..... :confused:
 

Pigless

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Don t forget GM :whistle:


and yet that assured mill will give you an assured ticket to go with their product show to your inspector...:confused:


Of course this does mean that their costs are lower and the feed they sell you is cheaper pro rata,.... you cant have it all ways :unsure:

Funny old world..... :confused:
So why do they need farm assurance to buy british grain? Does anybody on here sell non farm assured into a feed mill?
I don't want to put costs up to livestock farmers but we do need some integrity in the system, both for a crop and livestock farm, otherwise it should be scrapped!
 
GM grain is approved for importation into Europe. It has been for years, probably close to 20 years if not more.

It is not individual farms that are assured in these places, rather, the grain will 'become assured' under some kind of local or regional government scheme when it reaches the store at the docks or distribution point for onward movement. Rather than Pedro trying to build and maintain and assure a store of his own on his 21.34 hectachkre plot he will simply have it transported to the nearest store in his locality.

There is no way farms across places as far flung as Russia or Brazil are assured in the same way you lot have to be. It isn't physically possible to insect them. Your scheme administrators, SAI Global or whoever might well fly a chap out to walk around the central store at the docks, eat pineapple and drink some local brew but that will be it. Having been to these kinds of countries myself, you could be talking about a 10 hour dirt road ride in a 4x4 just to reach one farm.
 
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Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
In reply to the OP - I agree, it's a scandalous situation and I don't know why us arable farmers have stood by and let it happen for so long.

I meant to start and do something about it by contacting UFASS and RT to see what they were going to do about it, but got sidetracked with Spring farming work.

My assured feed barley sat in the shed has been devalued by imports of non-assured imports and I'm fuming about it!
 

Spencer

Member
Location
North West
Wasn’t there a boat load of insect infected feed wheat bobbing about in the North Sea this winter? Destined for Enus but when it shut had to be fumigated then delivered into feed mills along with RT assures stuff.. :cautious::scratchhead:
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Wasn’t there a boat load of insect infected feed wheat bobbing about in the North Sea this winter? Destined for Enus but when it shut had to be fumigated then delivered into feed mills along with RT assures stuff.. :cautious::scratchhead:

Post harvest insecticide treated grain is acceptable under RT. I suggest you look at a standard grain passport!
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
Wasn’t there a boat load of insect infected feed wheat bobbing about in the North Sea this winter? Destined for Enus but when it shut had to be fumigated then delivered into feed mills along with RT assures stuff.. :cautious::scratchhead:

Non assured, insect infested grain going into the same mills as our farm assured grain fair!!! Really!!!

That's referred to as "extra high protein" wheat.
 

FarmerBruce

Member
Location
Yorkshire
The issue is the non assured bit. Insecticide treated grain is allowed. Sorry to spoil your rant.

Not if you speak to the hauliers who moved the stuff, who had to fumigate each wagon afterwards because the insecticide, which needed several days to work on board the boats, had only been given a couple of days! Hence the stuff was crawling!! Rant reignited!!
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Not if you speak to the hauliers who moved the stuff, who had to fumigate each wagon afterwards because the insecticide, which needed several days to work on board the boats, had only been given a couple of days! Hence the stuff was crawling!! Rant reignited!!

Fair enough (y)
 

D14

Member
Do feed mills have to use Red Tractor Approved grain for feeding RTA stock? Grain merchant I sell to is claiming the low Barley price is due to imported wheat and Maize from Russia etc. obviously this has no assurance and is feeding huge amount of RTA stock. Is it right that they only need to include a portion of approved grain to call it approved feed?

I was at a meeting last week where a conversation similar to this occurred. One guy there farmed on the UK and also in western Europe somewhere and over the years he'd bought machinery both sides of the pond and then moved them about so he always bought at the cheapest price. Anyway he said something about this and that his business in the UK could become a foreign farming business just by a paper trail so anything outside of brexit with regards to trade agreement and quality he thought he could get around. At the time it was also mentioned there was a large outfit somewhere in Norfolk that were owned by a western european agri business but I'm afraid I cannot recall the name.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 62 34.4%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.7%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.2%

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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