Red Tractor - Mass Cancellation

Badshot

Member
Location
Kent
I haven't read this thread, but there has been so much vocal/public moaning about red tractor assurance being a joke, WTF did everyone expect?
They're making the standards higher in response to being told the standards were a joke.
 

Wooly

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Romney Marsh
? RT isn't for the farmer, its for the supply chain and if you want to sell into that supply change you need assured to their standard. If you don't want to, then no one is forcing you to.

So what’s all the cross compliance rules for then !?! :scratchhead:

Non FA food is still safe to eat.

..... and to think that parts of the world are drinking water out of a pond that animals are wallowing in; others are starving........ and we are worrying wether we have written in the FA book when the cat was last wormed !

What a mad, mad world !
 

Werzle

Member
Location
Midlands
So what’s all the cross compliance rules for then !?! :scratchhead:

Non FA food is still safe to eat.

..... and to think that parts of the world are drinking water out of a pond that animals are wallowing in; others are starving........ and we are worrying wether we have written in the FA book when the cat was last wormed !

What a mad, mad world !
The uk's always trying to lead the world in following rules even if it breaks us. Unfortunatly the uk's commonsense has been thrown away to fulfil these rules.
 

tullah

Member
Location
Linconshire
So what’s all the cross compliance rules for then !?! :scratchhead:

Non FA food is still safe to eat.

..... and to think that parts of the world are drinking water out of a pond that animals are wallowing in; others are starving........ and we are worrying wether we have written in the FA book when the cat was last wormed !

What a mad, mad world !


We will only ever bring this mad world to an end if we support a non pc politician. There's one in particular who I can think of who is not afraid to stand up to the establishment and tell them how the real world ticks. When he's debating with the snowflakes he just wipes the floor with them all. All they come back with is to accuse him of being
racist and a fruitcake. Roll on the revolution and do away with all the jobsworts.
 

topground

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Somerset.
It helps to remember the origins of Red Tractor.
The Food Safety Act 1990 provided for a defence to legal proceedings for offences under the act of due diligence.
The Supermarkets and other members of the buyer cartel have created Farm Assurance as a means of their being provided with that due dilgence defence at the expense of their suppliers who pay for the inspections the buyers would otherwise have to fund themselves..
Farm Assurance has also provided a means whereby those cartels can control the way the primary producer markets their produce to the detriment of the primary producer.
If the buyer cartels were to fund Red Tractor directly I might consider joining.
However, I already pay taxes to fund the enforcement of the law of the land and I have the right of appeal to the courts in the event that I am not happy with action taken.
I have no representation or appeal in the Red Tractor process which is an additional expense, effectively a tax levied by buyer cartels.
No taxation without representation was the call to arms following tne Boston Tea Party and American Independence.
Time for another Tea Party!
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
@Clive has hit the nail on the head.

All food is produced to UK standards of food hygiene, environmental laws, animal health and welfare etc.

Farmers can expect (and get) spot or arranged inspections from the Environment Agency, Trading Standards, RPA, Dairy Inspectorate etc. In my experience, these checks are more in-depth and rigorous than anf RT inspection (for the points of law and things that really matter).

This means the food is fit for human consumption, and is produced to high standards.

There are, i think 55-60,000 farmer members of RT. If the average cost is £200 each, that is £11 million gone out of farmers pockets to a protection racket that isn't getting us any premium.

I think as a starting point, we need some farmer representatives who are voted on by the grass root farmer members. Let us decide who our own representatives will be.
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
It helps to remember the origins of Red Tractor.
The Food Safety Act 1990 provided for a defence to legal proceedings for offences under the act of due diligence.
The Supermarkets and other members of the buyer cartel have created Farm Assurance as a means of their being provided with that due dilgence defence at the expense of their suppliers who pay for the inspections the buyers would otherwise have to fund themselves..
Farm Assurance has also provided a means whereby those cartels can control the way the primary producer markets their produce to the detriment of the primary producer.
If the buyer cartels were to fund Red Tractor directly I might consider joining.
However, I already pay taxes to fund the enforcement of the law of the land and I have the right of appeal to the courts in the event that I am not happy with action taken.
I have no representation or appeal in the Red Tractor process which is an additional expense, effectively a tax levied by buyer cartels.
No taxation without representation was the call to arms following tne Boston Tea Party and American Independence.
Time for another Tea Party!
And you, more than many, would look at all the other add on costs now you have to prove to DEFRA what a breed is to meet a gold plated EU rule....... Our own little Breed Society (8 active breeders) spends over a third of it's membership fees just getting our books audited - which in itself is comical given the EU's macro auditing record ....
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
@Clive has hit the nail on the head.

All food is produced to UK standards of food hygiene, environmental laws, animal health and welfare etc.

Farmers can expect (and get) spot or arranged inspections from the Environment Agency, Trading Standards, RPA, Dairy Inspectorate etc. In my experience, these checks are more in-depth and rigorous than anf RT inspection (for the points of law and things that really matter).

This means the food is fit for human consumption, and is produced to high standards.

There are, i think 55-60,000 farmer members of RT. If the average cost is £200 each, that is £11 million gone out of farmers pockets to a protection racket that isn't getting us any premium.

I think as a starting point, we need some farmer representatives who are voted on by the grass root farmer members. Let us decide who our own representatives will be.

I believe there are farmer representatives on RT board ?

Trouble is it’s all rather incestious as far as I can see as those farmers seem to usually come via NFU crop boards etc and the NFU’s ownership / involvement of RT creates a clear conflict of interest for those board members imo

Lots of stuff seems to work this way in Ag governance and representation as far as I can tell - lot of jobs for the boys if you do as you’re told and don’t rock the boat !
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
Yes there are farmer representatives, vut as you say they seem to come from certain backgrounds. Fair play to them for getting the job, and obviously experience of the industry and committee meetings etc is important, but presumably they are appointed by RT.

I think this is why we need the farmer representatives to be farmer member appointed (one man, one vote). The nature of this method of appointing our representatives, would mean that it would probably be a very different type of person on the board, and i think that would represent the farmers views better.

In the meantine, i guess all we can do is lobby the farmer board members. The NFU don't seem to listen, and are stuck to their views - mainly because the structure of RT is incestuous.
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Careful what you wish for. Some folk have been known to have visits from inspectors, to audit the auditors that have already been.....:banghead:
I had exactly this happen to me. My previous inspector would never pass us. He would walk around and around till he found something to fail us on, even though he had passed it the previous year.

So I complained to NSF that he wasn't being fair. His own boss over-ruled his decision about our spray shed not being insulated, because (as it just so happened) I had got some Hessian sacking stored in it that could be used as insulation.

The following year, when he rang up to book an agreed inspection date, 5 minutes later he rang back to ask if I still wanted to go ahead with that date, because an auditor would be auditing him as we were being inspected. To his utter surprise, I said that it would be fine and to stick with that date.

Guess what - we passed with flying colours! Even though one of my Air/water/soil books was out of date. The auditor downloaded to latest version onto my computer for me. (I had no idea how to do that then!)

Fortunately, that twit stopped doing inspections and his boss now inspects us (the same one that does @Clive). He is a much more reasonable fellow and very fair.
 

FarmyStu

Member
Location
NE Lincs
I love this idea of a "farmer lead" assurance group. Apart from the fact it wouldn't be independent of farmers and therefore would never be trusted, do you really think that you could come up with a set of rules that everyone agreed with????

My father in law and a farmer friend both think RT is similar to the Stasi or KGB. But one thinks that the others farming methods are well below "normal". So who would you go to for a set of standards?
 

FarmyStu

Member
Location
NE Lincs
so do I
at last we agree on something
Then set one up. You have yourself and all the other farmers on here. You could use the forum openly to come up with standards that all agree on and then launch it to the minority of framers who don't use TFF. No rush, you could spend a year coming up with a set of standards for each sector.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Then set one up. You have yourself and all the other farmers on here. You could use the forum openly to come up with standards that all agree on and then launch it to the minority of framers who don't use TFF. No rush, you could spend a year coming up with a set of standards for each sector.
No I will let you do it as you are so keen
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I had exactly this happen to me. My previous inspector would never pass us. He would walk around and around till he found something to fail us on, even though he had passed it the previous year.

So I complained to NSF that he wasn't being fair. His own boss over-ruled his decision about our spray shed not being insulated, because (as it just so happened) I had got some Hessian sacking stored in it that could be used as insulation.

The following year, when he rang up to book an agreed inspection date, 5 minutes later he rang back to ask if I still wanted to go ahead with that date, because an auditor would be auditing him as we were being inspected. To his utter surprise, I said that it would be fine and to stick with that date.

Guess what - we passed with flying colours! Even though one of my Air/water/soil books was out of date. The auditor downloaded to latest version onto my computer for me. (I had no idea how to do that then!)

Fortunately, that twit stopped doing inspections and his boss now inspects us (the same one that does @Clive). He is a much more reasonable fellow and very fair.

Your mistake was not leaving something very minor for him to stumble across easily, as should be common practice with all inspectors, whatever body they are from.:whistle:

If they are still being difficult then move to phase two, appealing to their sense of self importance. Ask their advice on something, then listen intently to their answer nodding occasionally.(y)
 

FarmyStu

Member
Location
NE Lincs
No I will let you do it as you are so keen
I think a farmer lead scheme is a non-starter as it needs independence. But I think RT is lacking as well. Great farms get RT accreditation, medium standard farms get RT accreditation and as we all know, so do some awful farms. Plus you have great farms who don't bother with RT at all and some truly shocking farms that can't be segregated from them.

I think a system of pass scale would be the way forward. As far as I know that's what the current DEFRA S of S, Gove, is in favour of. He wants it to include environmental standards as well. So you could pass with 1 star or you could pass with 5 stars (or you could fail). No doubt some buyers would specify that they only bought from 5 star farms. The real driver of quality though would be farmers themselves. Would you really be happy being the only 1 star farmer in the county? It's just benchmarking with teeth.
 

topground

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Somerset.
I think a farmer lead scheme is a non-starter as it needs independence. But I think RT is lacking as well. Great farms get RT accreditation, medium standard farms get RT accreditation and as we all know, so do some awful farms. Plus you have great farms who don't bother with RT at all and some truly shocking farms that can't be segregated from them.

I think a system of pass scale would be the way forward. As far as I know that's what the current DEFRA S of S, Gove, is in favour of. He wants it to include environmental standards as well. So you could pass with 1 star or you could pass with 5 stars (or you could fail). No doubt some buyers would specify that they only bought from 5 star farms. The real driver of quality though would be farmers themselves. Would you really be happy being the only 1 star farmer in the county? It's just benchmarking with teeth.
What standards of qualification and professional integrity would you apply to those employed as inspectors?
Those employed to enforce the law of the land, EHO's Trading Standards etc are subject to the standards of their professional bodies and more important their decisions are subject fo review by the courts. If you dont like what they do you can also go directly to your local councillor or the ombudsman.
It Appears that anyone can walk in off the street and tick boxes for Red Tractor with no sanction or appeal mechanism in place. This in itself leads the organisation open to corrupt practice. I dont know if there are any bent FA inspectors out there but the whole scam is open for abuse includng its manipulation by the vested interests that control it for their own profit.
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Your mistake was not leaving something very minor for him to stumble across easily, as should be common practice with all inspectors, whatever body they are from.:whistle:

If they are still being difficult then move to phase two, appealing to their sense of self importance. Ask their advice on something, then listen intently to their answer nodding occasionally.(y)
Nah, not that one. He just thought it was very clever to fail me. But he got his comeuppance. That suited me fine and a lot of others around here too.

Asking his advice was not possible. His answer was that he wasn't allowed to advise. He was an agronomist who for some stupid reason, didn't get on with my agronomist. Probably had a chip on his shoulder about him.

He once asked me that if he failed me, would he be reading about it next month in the FW. I answered no, but should have said yes. That was my only mistake.

Sadly, there are such people in life and more fool them for being like that.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 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

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  • 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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