Mass Balance

[DrWazzock]

Soon be harvest. How are supposed to do this then?
I have one trailer with a primitive weigher the other 3 have no weigher.
I know what leaves the farm as I have the weight returns but I don’t know what is harvested to within half a ton per acre.
So how’s it going to work then?

 

[Steevo]

In theory......just count the trailers, assign a nominal amount to each and go from there.

Or......think up a number and write that down!

 

[DrWazzock]

Sorry didn’t see other thread. Feel free to delete this one.

 

[robbie]

Why oh why are people even giving something so trivial and pointless any thought.

Write something down, they can't fail you as long as youve tried. It's not a School exam.

 

[Phil P]

Weigh 100 grains on the kitchen scales then just count the rest as you tip them

 

[Boysground]

Had an inspection on Monday. Inspector said that a visual estimate of what was in the heap was enough. Makes it even more pointless.

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[steveR]

Had an inspection on Monday. Inspector said that a visual estimate of what was in the heap was enough. Makes it even more pointless.

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Which is what I always did for..... ooooh, decades.

RT really is a bit Bonkers, thank goodness it does not impinge too much on my life!

 

[robbie]

So, I think I'm right in thinking that this mass balance cobblers is so QA farms don't sell non assured grain for there neighbour.

If that was going to happen then surely if your neighbour had for example a 100 t that you was going to sell for him you'd just add it onto the sheet so the total at the end came right. So therefore what's the bloody point or assuming we don't need to keep all collection tickets as proof the other option is just to "forget" to write the 3 or 4 loads of your neighbours down on the sheet so as not to skew the figures at end.

 

[Boysground]

Just thinking, if at the end of harvest I estimate I have 500t in my heap. Then I go and sell 600t. Do Red Tractor give me a prize for being a better farmer?

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[Boysground]

So, I think I'm right in thinking that this mass balance cobblers is so QA farms don't sell non assured grain for there neighbour.

If that was going to happen then surely if your neighbour had for example a 100 t that you was going to sell for him you'd just add it onto the sheet so the total at the end came right. So therefore what's the bloody point or assuming we don't need to keep all collection tickets as proof the other option is just to "forget" to write the 3 or 4 loads of your neighbours down on the sheet so as not to skew the figures at end.

Inspector told me it was to do with biofuels and ploughing up land that had been used for environmental payments. Someone else will know the detail

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[robbie]

How does that prove anything, if I have more tons In the shed than last year that doesn't mean I've gone and ploughed up and cropped my sssi it just means I may have more acres of a given crop or I've just got a better yield.

 

[farmerm]

Its a fudging pointless nonsense. Just write down a number based on a best guess on yield per ac. If anyone really wants to launder any of the very tiny proportion of grain not permitted in biofuels to biofuels they can just have exceptional yields

 

[traineefarmer]

My inspector told me that they would accept a 10% (WTF!!!!!!!) margin of error, but the accuracy wouldn't be a failure point, not keeping the record would be.

It's an absolute joke born out of an ill thought out EU regulation that we must comply with as biofuel will be exported.

Mine will be done a few days before the inspector arrives, based on average yields, sales receipts and whatever's left will have been fed to the cattle. I just haven't made up my mind whether to achieve an accuracy of 8.763% so it looks realistic or be bang on to the gram so I can claim to be an ESTIMATING GOD.

 

[steveR]

Just thinking, if at the end of harvest I estimate I have 500t in my heap. Then I go and sell 600t. Do Red Tractor give me a prize for being a better farmer?

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If you are lucky, they put you on the naughty step, or if a really, really bad boy, they won't let you play anymore with the Big Boys.... Win Win!

 

[yellow belly]

My inspector told me that they would accept a 10% (WTF!!!!!!!) margin of error, but the accuracy wouldn't be a failure point, not keeping the record would be.

It's an absolute joke born out of an ill thought out EU regulation that we must comply with as biofuel will be exported.

Mine will be done a few days before the inspector arrives, based on average yields, sales receipts and whatever's left will have been fed to the cattle. I just haven't made up my mind whether to achieve an accuracy of 8.763% so it looks realistic or be bang on to the gram so I can claim to be an ESTIMATING GOD.

mine will be done when i start looking at my marketing options and add up the number of trailers into each shed and estimate the tonnage from the specific weights never been farm out
usually never under or over sell as both can be expensive

 

[nick...]

I only got short term storage till end of October.I’ve only got to wait till everything has gone and then knock a ton of the sold amount.utterly ridiculous
nick…

 

[Grass And Grain]

How EU think mass balance guarantees I haven't ploughed up and cropped some env sensitive pasture I'll never know.

It's a reasonably painless way of keeping EU happy, and not RT's fault, but jeez what a waste of time.

In fact, pains me to say it, but RT have got a reasonably easy method ticked off by EU, but requires a farm level inspection - hence where RT have positioned themselves (not saying RT are wrong to do this).

That said, in some countries/schemes farmers don't need to have an annual inspection to pass REDII rules. They supply one off information of fields and previous cropping (ploughed up environmentally sensitive land) to merchant. Merchant then does a meaningful mass balance calculation. E.g. 95% of grain we buy grown on historically cropped land, we only sold 40% of our grain into biofuels markets, therefore we pass the mass balance calculation.

No idea how EU think the RT system provides any reassurance of where crop was grown.

 

[Steevo]

How EU think mass balance guarantees I haven't ploughed up and cropped some env sensitive pasture I'll never know.

It's a reasonably painless way of keeping EU happy, and not RT's fault, but jeez what a waste of time.

In fact, pains me to say it, but RT have got a reasonably easy method ticked off by EU, but requires a farm level inspection - hence where RT have positioned themselves (not saying RT are wrong to do this).

That said, in some countries/schemes farmers don't need to have an annual inspection to pass REDII rules. They supply one off information of fields and previous cropping (ploughed up environmentally sensitive land) to merchant. Merchant then does a meaningful mass balance calculation. E.g. 95% of grain we buy grown on historically cropped land, we only sold 40% of our grain into biofuels markets, therefore we pass the mass balance calculation.

No idea how EU think the RT system provides any reassurance of where crop was grown.

You’d think that RPA data would be a pretty good way to do it…..they know the history of pretty much every field for decades!

 

[Grass And Grain]

You’d think that RPA data would be a pretty good way to do it…..they know the history of pretty much every field for decades!

Yes, why not just use that data, submit it to EU, then that should be job done for whole country.

 

[Steevo]

Yes, why not just use that data, submit it to EU, then that should be job done for whole country.

I mean they’re bound to be able to calculate how many acres of endangered rainforest there were in the UK….!