Pre inspection/ audit service

Billy Sugger

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Deepest Dorset
Hi looking at providing a pre inspection or audit service to get farmers ducks in a row, either Organic Red Tractor or buyers remit, good idea for farmers under pressure ?
Very good background knowledge of requirements and criteria.
 

supercow

Member
Location
Dumfriesshire
Hi looking at providing a pre inspection or audit service to get farmers ducks in a row, either Organic Red Tractor or buyers remit, good idea for farmers under pressure ?
Very good background knowledge of requirements and criteria.
Pretty good idea, i was caught off guard this time with not having a health and safety policy written down, Or having a contingency plan written down. Hard to keep track of new rules! Before anyone has a go, the ones I mentioned might have always been rules but first time I was called up for it.
 

frederick

Member
Location
south west
Don't know how to go about it but I've felt there is a role for someone to take ownership of a farms auditing rather than just checking the farm has done it properly.

I pay for a health and safety policy. Schools club together so they have one specialist for issues. Large businesses would employ an individual responsible for auditing.
I would like to be able to buy that skill into my business and not have to worry or even think about it because it is someone else's responsibility.
 

bitwrx

Member
That’s what I do. I got told that they have to find something wrong on every single farm. So very little point in being perfect
Well, I've had 2 audits with zero NCs, so that ain't always true! We're not perfect either.

Conversely, the old man's tactic was to use the auditor to tell him what he was doing wrong. This went ok until he had the chief auditor do the mother of all audits on national audit day in the chinese year of the audit. Enough NCs to put us firmly on the naughty step. Old man had to appeal to RT, and go up to London to plead his case (and, erm, correct some 'inaccuracies' in the audit report). Not a pleasant experience.

My experience has been that if the paperwork is good, you're off to a good start. Yes, I know, but that's the way of the world. At least my clipboard says it is.

FWIW, in relation to the OP. I think there probably is a gap in the market. There are a lot of single person business out there which don't have the expertise and/or motivation to pull together a convincing set of paperwork for RT, or cast a dispassionate eye over the infrastructure. External expertise could be useful.

But it's the farmer that actually has to farm in line with the rules they've signed up to, so they're gonna have to know the standard fairly well either way...
 

Jdunn55

Member
That’s what I do. I got told that they have to find something wrong on every single farm. So very little point in being perfect
My preference it seems is to spend the month prior panicking and running round like a Headless chicken getting no sleep and making countless cockups elsewhere

I f*cking hate everything about red tractor. It is one of the biggest scams going.

My mum is a nurse and actually said to me that as part of their inspection they should have to do a mental health review of the farmer because she reckons its not just me who gets flustered by it
 

supercow

Member
Location
Dumfriesshire
My experience is if the stock look well and well looked after they are lenient and give a few minors here and there. It is (almost) fact that they have to give farms at least minors, it’s to show they have been left their mark and seen to be doing something.
 

supercow

Member
Location
Dumfriesshire
My preference it seems is to spend the month prior panicking and running round like a Headless chicken getting no sleep and making countless cockups elsewhere

I f*cking hate everything about red tractor. It is one of the biggest scams going.

My mum is a nurse and actually said to me that as part of their inspection they should have to do a mental health review of the farmer because she reckons its not just me who gets flustered by it
We need something to show that we half know what we are doing to keep the consumer happy 😊 I do worry about it, once it’s done I breathe a bit easier I must admit.
we worry and get in a fuss about it and there’s farms out there I just don’t know how they pass
 

O'Reilly

Member
I can see the attraction of this, but it seems a bit like getting a consultant to do your business plan for you. You have to know the job yourself, especially since you are technically supposed to be inspection ready all year round. If you take that approach, then there should only be a couple of non conformances, and the inspector can put you right without paying another person. I have a feeling that the farm consultancy group already offer something like this for all sorts of compliance.
 

Ducati899

Member
Location
north dorset
There must be a list of requirements for these audits so you can go through everything before the inspector turns up?
Do you really need an outsider to do that? They'll only tell you what's wrong, you'll still have to put it right yourself.

From what I’ve heard from other people who’ve used this kind of service,there’s serious money to be made going on what they said they had paid!! Our last two RT audits,I’ve spent a day beforehand getting all paperwork in order and uploading any documents they wanted so inspector could view them before they turned up on farm .
 

In the pit

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Pembrokeshire
There must be a list of requirements for these audits so you can go through everything before the inspector turns up?
Do you really need an outsider to do that? They'll only tell you what's wrong, you'll still have to put it right yourself.
Yes there is and a lot of rt stuff is on going paperwork. People get in trouble when it’s all left to the day before and then moan about having the inspection
The other good thing is they tell you way in advance what date they are coming rather than turning up out of the blue
 

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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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