Opinion Harvester Survey - Red Tractor

Had this come through by email this morning. Some excellent questions being asked.

Anyone else who has it I suggest it would be well worth filling in.


Give us some info, the old man got this survey through the email today.

His first reaction was to fudge em and not fill it in.

Can you give us some reasons WHY we should fill it in and what the questions are. Is it worth filling in ? Otherwise a lot of people are probably not going to bother. RT is a bad name here and a lot of people are sick of it.
 

Mixedupfarmer

Member
Location
Norfolk
Give us some info, the old man got this survey through the email today.

His first reaction was to fudge em and not fill it in.

Can you give us some reasons WHY we should fill it in and what the questions are. Is it worth filling in ? Otherwise a lot of people are probably not going to bother. RT is a bad name here and a lot of people are sick of it.
£7 reason enough 😂
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
Give us some info, the old man got this survey through the email today.

His first reaction was to fudge em and not fill it in.

Can you give us some reasons WHY we should fill it in and what the questions are. Is it worth filling in ? Otherwise a lot of people are probably not going to bother. RT is a bad name here and a lot of people are sick of it.
Because if you don’t reply they’ll think you love the status quo!
 

andybk

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Mendips Somerset
Give us some info, the old man got this survey through the email today.

His first reaction was to fudge em and not fill it in.

Can you give us some reasons WHY we should fill it in and what the questions are. Is it worth filling in ? Otherwise a lot of people are probably not going to bother. RT is a bad name here and a lot of people are sick of it.
fill it in , RT wont like my replies , more the better , wont take many mins, and they will give you £7 (a pint at glasto)
 
Does anyone actually like Red Tractor, or do 95% of us hate it?
So many words have been written about RT ,but here a few more for what it is worth.In many cases if you do something that costs you money for no return it is seen as a bad business decision and you cease to do it to protect your business. Unfortunately many of us cannot trade efficiently without RT assurance, (I cannot deliver my sugar beet crop to British Sugar without it) and outlets to the grain trade are limited also if not 'assured'. Same old story is that total solidarity amongst farmers is lacking and too many just shrug their shoulders and go along under protest with the scheme. Some even think it is marvellous and welcome it particularly if you are on the board of directors etc.
Every time I am assessed I ask the assessor to make RT aware that the scheme has become a farce and many of the questions are so far removed from sensible crop production it is laughable. My previous assessor agreed (he was a retired farmer). If we are to have a scheme of some sort it should only be based on safe and sustainable crop production that gives the primary producer benefits for the time and expenses that it costs us.
I am only a small farmer but assurance costs me close to £1000.00 a year for membership, training for NROSO, sprayer Mot, waste disposal, signage, and time spent writing and recording things that the end users of my produce are not remotely interested in or to the best of my knowledge never ask to see or verify.
 

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Does anyone actually like Red Tractor, or do 95% of us hate it?
I don't mind red tractor hardly know I do it, compared to Organic Certification it's a doddle , quite happy with it just needs to be tougher and less Mickey mouse , whole life or nothing . Making a fat animal suddenly farm assured in its last 90 days is ridiculous .
If we didn't have Red Tractor would we have more inspections ?
I'd prefer one inspection that covers everything farm standards/ Rpa / health & safety / Supermarket and for me Organic all at the same time rather than multiple inspections that quite often duplicate each other.
 

zero

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorkshire coast
Done it. Opinion harvester was like all harvesters and had a few technical issues along the way but there's enough boxes to succinctly tell them what you think!
 

bigw

Member
Location
Scotland
One of the questions has an ‘other’ option where I put most of my views. I would think they will get a terrible view of RT if people bother to return in. Plenty on here moan about RT so let’s make it known what pathetic value it actually is to UK farmers.
 

topground

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Somerset.
I don't mind red tractor hardly know I do it, compared to Organic Certification it's a doddle , quite happy with it just needs to be tougher and less Mickey mouse , whole life or nothing . Making a fat animal suddenly farm assured in its last 90 days is ridiculous .
If we didn't have Red Tractor would we have more inspections ?
I'd prefer one inspection that covers everything farm standards/ Rpa / health & safety / Supermarket and for me Organic all at the same time rather than multiple inspections that quite often duplicate each other.
Whole life would mean the supermarket cartel can do away with livestock markets and therefore competition for cattle and sheep, at the stroke of a pen in order to achieve their business aim of integrated supply chains where they dictate the price they will pay to the producer.
Be careful of what you wish for. Integrated supply chains have not done the pig or poultry job any favours.
 
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roscoe erf

Member
Livestock Farmer
Whole life would mean the supermarket cartel can do away with livestock markets and therefore competition for cattle and sheep, at the stroke of a pen in order to achieve their business aim of integrated supply chains.
Be careful of what you wish for. Integrated supply chains have not done the pig or poultry job any favours.
be the worse thing for our industry and yet again farmers are their own worse enemy
 

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Whole life would mean the supermarket cartel can do away with livestock markets and therefore competition for cattle and sheep, at the stroke of a pen in order to achieve their business aim of integrated supply chains where they dictate the price they will pay to the producer.
Be careful of what you wish for. Integrated supply chains have not done the pig or poultry job any favours.
Livestock markets already deal with Red Tractor suppliers it will just mean to be fully farm assured a animal will need to be assured from birth but you do raise another point there should be a limit on movements too.
So we either have different levels of farm assurance or none at all?
Why should a animal born & finished on a single farm be the same price as a animal bought and sold several times but its last 90days just happened to be on a farm assured farm ?
This is where Red Tractor is Mickey Mouse , should be whole life and a premium for it.
 

nick...

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
south norfolk
Can’t even open the link on mine.it was in the spam folder too and I really like the part that says “dear valued member” at the top of the email.valued for what,paying then for f**k all
nick…
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 67 35.3%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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

  • 1,294
  • 1
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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