Red Tractor review ? How ?

[Grass And Grain]

If RT is removed expect to pay for Local Authority audits. Why will the taxpayer fund such visits as free visits? And as a taxpayer you would expect your local council to charge for such a service - would you not? Even though checking legal requirements. Building regs man charges for example.

Local Authority Food Standards checks are free. They're free for coffee shops, bakers, deli, butchers, commercial grain stores.

Tbh though, even if they did charge, I'd rather pay them than RT. We would get a qualified Food Standards Inspector.

As far as I'm aware, the RT inspectors don't have the same official qualification as the Food Standards Inspector.

I suppose one form of protest possible by assured growers is to ask for £5 a tonne above whatever we are offered in order to pay for RT. If we refused to sell unless we got the £5 premium then it might send a message. Obviously we could only do it for so long but it might at least be educational. The contract asks for RT so please show me the premium over imports. In fact AHDB ought to be publishing two prices. Assured and unassured so we all know what a good thing assurance is. They’d be serving a purpose then.

The AIC contract asks for the grain to be farm assured. It doesn't say which scheme afaik.

That means unless if you sell to a merchant, unless their contract specifies RT/SQC, all We've got to do is supply farm assured. Merchants problem to them sell this grain to their customer. Suppose they'd soon get wise to it though, but they could have bought a fair chunk of grain before they've realised.

Think I'm going to email AIC tomorrow and ask if they accept L Authority Food Standards inspection for their UFAS mills. If not, why not. If they don't accept it, I'd be inclined to give AIC some bad publicity.

 

[texelburger]

Maybe infrequent Dr W but once RT has gone then it might become more frequent and if so I would expect the councils to see a cost and start to ask for whose benefit is the inspection. As for not a big cost and if taxes paid what will be charged - then look forward to the future - unless it passed you by Nottinghamshire County Council is the latest council to declare bankruptcy. The mess of local government finance due to years of Tory austerity is catching up. I should be amazed if these sort of visits to check farms have to become more frequent or more premises visited as RT has gone local councils do not look to recover some if not all the cost. We shall see. From your posts over the years I thought you would be the first to say no such thing as a free lunch?!

Do all the millions of LA inspections for all food outlets in the Country ie Restaurants, McDonald's etc etc incur inspection charges ?

 

[soapsud]

Do all the millions of LA inspections for all food outlets in the Country ie Restaurants, McDonald's etc etc incur inspection charges ?

council tax premiums above ag tie rates.
And no, I'm not advocating a LVT to subsidise the LAs, TS, FSA, etc.

The MOT analogy is good. You get a farm tested and if on that one day all is good, then it will most likely be good for a good while.

This time period will be up for negotiation with the representations and the BRC if RT review "lessons learnt" aren't learnable.

 

[T C]

A noble aim but at the moment we have a standard that producers are absolutely peed off with and has never, and never will, show a premium.

100% agree, if the members are not behind it there is not a future.
The only way out is to demonstrate a reliable premium proptionate to the hastle - personally I dont think it exists as the consumer buys on price.

 

[DrWazzock]

As regards funding of LA inspections, with a DEFRA budget of £3bn supposedly ring fenced for spending on SFI, ELMS, CS etc then surely they could bung the hard up Local Authority a few quid to help them cope with any slight increase in inspections needed due to demise of RT? Wouldn’t this be a better use of taxpayers’ money than using it to fund the dereliction of farmland, reversion to wilderness, growing of non crops etc? We’d then have standard national farm assurance on a proper legal footing based on laws set by Parliament not on a wish list from BRC.
RT is too tainted by involvement of BRC and AIC to have any credible future in my view. The foxes are in control of the chicken coop.

 

[DrWazzock]

Really RT needs a government or DEFRA review particularly in regard to its impact on market access and its exploitation by commercially vested interests.
Reviews of RT by RT itself are a joke.

 

[Fiveospades]

If RT are to be allowed to investigate themselves then surely we should carry out our own farm assurance inspections.

O life could be so much simpler in my practical world that I wish for.

 

[DrDunc]

Really RT needs a government or DEFRA review particularly in regard to its impact on market access and its exploitation by commercially vested interests.
Reviews of RT by RT itself are a joke.

It matters not who conducts the review if the correct questions are not asked by the reviewing body

No information has been released about the specifics of what is being reviewed by the supposedly independent company appointed, and the NFU have already stated clearly that they "own" the findings. Masking tape has already been applied to seal the edges of the whitewash


Surely it would be very simple to improve RT if they could reel in their determination to become the retail consortium's lap dog, and listen to the complaints from farmers?

The pedantic gold plating of pointless made up regulations must stop, if RT are to survive. However, I doubt the mindset of the RT administration will permit any consideration of change that was not of their own devising?

 

[DrWazzock]

It matters not who conducts the review if the correct questions are not asked by the reviewing body

No information has been released about the specifics of what is being reviewed by the supposedly independent company appointed, and the NFU have already stated clearly that they "own" the findings. Masking tape has already been applied to seal the edges of the whitewash


Surely it would be very simple to improve RT if they could reel in their determination to become the retail consortium's lap dog, and listen to the complaints from farmers?

The pedantic gold plating of pointless made up regulations must stop, if RT are to survive. However, I doubt the mindset of the RT administration will permit any consideration of change that was not of their own devising?

I’d be happy if RT rolled back to the minimum legal requirements for food safety and if all “trade” and customer members retired from the board. I can’t see that happening somehow. Even the reviews are behind closed doors well away from farmer scrutiny. Says it all really. Why is it all done in secret if there’s nothing to hide?

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Really RT needs a government or DEFRA review particularly in regard to its impact on market access and its exploitation by commercially vested interests.
Reviews of RT by RT itself are a joke.

If you complain to your MP, they will rightly say, red tractor is voluntary and does not come under any legislation. It's nothing to do with government

Market access is neither controlled or facilitated by the dead tractor. Processors and the corporate food system use farm assurance to load cost and the burden of inspection onto the producer. The buyers are the guilty parties here.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Why is it all done in secret if there’s nothing to hide?

Because there's an awful lot to hide.

 

[DrWazzock]

It’s the governments job to ensure fair competition and application of laws and regulations impartially. By allowing the trade to design and police the regulations and thereby in a round about way to control who can sell and who can buy produce, they’ve failed in that job in my view. It’s a kind of privatisation of the law that needs to stop. Every kind of regulation service that’s been privatised seems to have resulted in overzealous application of rules and requirements motivated by the private bodies desire and in fact need to increase their workload and profits.
This has happened in everything from private housing associations to running of car parks. I just don’t like the way it’s going. Bit of an aside really.

 

[BigBarl]

Rural France turned upside-down by farmers

Road signs have been unscrewed, flipped over and screwed back on in a growing campaign.

www.bbc.co.uk

A nice, peaceful idea from the french of getting your point across and reaching the public. Perhaps the BFU members could orchestrate similar?