The Red Tractor ACCS referendum

[FarmyStu]

Farmy Stu, hello again. I see you're still battling away. Can you explain why you feel so strongly in favour or are you just having a bit of fun?

Also can you explain why you think produced to UK standard and within the law needs a third party to police methods of production, rather than to have any necessary safety and regulatory checks carried out on behalf of the buyer?

Thirdly why do you think it's acceptable for imports to be awarded farm assured status by UK mills and merchants when no such checks have been carried out on those imports?

Three simple questions. If you would like to answer them as a consumer then maybe us producers will get the point.

I'm not doing it for fun but I'm not on a mission either. I just have an opinion and a few spare minutes to type it out. I'm not a devotee of Red Tractor, but have no problem with assurance as a good thing. I think RT is too easy to pass due to lax inspections in many cases. I've been on farm for a few RT inspections and the inspectors have been too keen to get inside to look at paperwork rather than having a good look around the livestock and buildings.

I don't think anything produced to UK legal standards needs a scheme. That was what others have suggested. I think it's daft. Who would NOT tick the box saying "produced to minimum legal standards"??? But don't kid yourself that "produced to legal minimum standards" is some sort of assurance. It's exactly what it says it is. The minimum legal. And without some sort of regular check, some will produce to standards lower than that, as they do now. In fact we know that some produce to lower than legal standards despite being RT. But overall I'd guess this happens more with non RT farmers than it does with them. (That's not to say that there aren't some very high quality producers who aren't RT, as I know there are).

Imports have to be "assured" not "farm assured". Some are obviously produced to lower standards than our own legal produce, let alone RT produce. If mixed with our own RT stuff, it retains assured status, but not RT status. Not ideal, but only RT grain is RT. Once mixed it is no longer RT or sold as such. Some on here seem to want a race to the bottom, to be able to produce to foreign standards. In my opinion, this is simply not a runner. Your customers don't want it and if the public got wind of such a reduction in UK standards, done at the behest of UK farmers, the reputational damage to UK ag would be immense IMO.

I do sometimes detect a bit of a luddite attitude to some pf the posts on here. "Assurance used to be ok but now it's gone too far". "I just want to be left alone to farm as I always have". Things change and they always will. Complaining is human nature but to really believe that you can turn back the clock to "the good old days" is delusional.

I keep reading on here that people don't want to lower standards, but just to match those of imports, If you believe that, then I'd ask this: If a 1000 consumers were polled on the following question:

There is a push by some RT assured farmers to change sprayer testing from once a year, to once very 3 years. Would this A. Raise standards B. Maintain standards C. Lower standards.

Where, in all honesty, do you think the consensus would be? I'm guessing it wouldn't be A or B........

 

[steveR]

Only a minority of any livestock product Sould be classed as rt most livestock will have eaten imported products absolutely no way can or should imported be mixed and say ok to feed and be rt totaly ludicrous position . I or anyou body cand do an asurance like imported . Get rEaling makes your blood boil. Hipocrasy to a t.

How much Lamb will be RT?? Not that much, according to what you see in the markets.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

I'm not doing it for fun but I'm not on a mission either. I just have an opinion and a few spare minutes to type it out. I'm not a devotee of Red Tractor, but have no problem with assurance as a good thing. I think RT is too easy to pass due to lax inspections in many cases. I've been on farm for a few RT inspections and the inspectors have been too keen to get inside to look at paperwork rather than having a good look around the livestock and buildings.

I don't think anything produced to UK legal standards needs a scheme. That was what others have suggested. I think it's daft. Who would NOT tick the box saying "produced to minimum legal standards"??? But don't kid yourself that "produced to legal minimum standards" is some sort of assurance. It's exactly what it says it is. The minimum legal. And without some sort of regular check, some will produce to standards lower than that, as they do now. In fact we know that some produce to lower than legal standards despite being RT. But overall I'd guess this happens more with non RT farmers than it does with them. (That's not to say that there aren't some very high quality producers who aren't RT, as I know there are).

Imports have to be "assured" not "farm assured". Some are obviously produced to lower standards than our own legal produce, let alone RT produce. If mixed with out own RT stuff, it retains assured status, but not RT status. Not ideal, but only RT grain is RT. Once mixed it is no longer RT or sold as such. Some on here seem to want a race to the bottom, to be able to produce to foreign standards. In my opinion, this is simply not a runner. Your customers don't want it and if the public got wind of such a reduction in UK standards, done at the behest of UK farmers, the reputational damage to UK ag would be immense IMO.

I do sometimes detect a bit of a luddite attitude to some pf the posts on here. "Assurance used to be ok but now it's gone too far". "I just want to be left alone to farm as I always have". Things change and they always will. Complaining is human nature but to really believe that you can turn back the clock to "the good old days" is delusional.

I keep reading on here that people don't want to lower standards, but just to match those of imports, If you believe that, then I'd ask this: If a 1000 consumers were polled on the following question:

There is a push by some RT assured farmers to change sprayer testing from once a year, to once very 3 years. Would this A. Raise standards B. Maintain standards C. Lower standards.

Where, in all honesty, do you think the consensus would be? I'm guessing it wouldn't be A or B........

Farmy Stu, you haven't answered my second question.

 

[ploughman1963]

I keep reading on here that people don't want to lower standards, but just to match those of imports, If you believe that, then I'd ask this: If a 1000 consumers were polled on the following question:

There is a push by some RT assured farmers to change sprayer testing from once a year, to once very 3 years. Would this A. Raise standards B. Maintain standards C. Lower standards.

Where, in all honesty, do you think the consensus would be? I'm guessing it wouldn't be A or B........

You are as bad as RT at carefully phrasing your questions! How about you explain beforehand that the legal requirement is for three yearly test and that imported grain may or may not have been produced to that requirement. Now ask them whether the British Farmer should have to test every year when their foreign counterpart and the legal requirement is 3 year.
In reality, I would bet that the vast majority of farmers have their sprayer checked over professionally each year anyway - its the pointless box ticking we object to

 

[steveR]

You are as bad as RT at carefully phrasing your questions! How about you explain beforehand that the legal requirement is for three yearly test and that imported grain may or may not have been produced to that requirement. Now ask them whether the British Farmer should have to test every year when their foreign counterpart and the legal requirement is 3 year.
In reality, I would bet that the vast majority of farmers have their sprayer checked over professionally each year anyway - its the pointless box ticking we object to

 

[Drillman]

@FarmyStu dont get it that non of us would mind box ticking, inspections etc. If it gave us something in return,

It doesn’t and imports don’t need to jump thru the same hoops and end up getting mixed with domestic stuff.

Therefore RT is just a scam lifting money out of our pockets that could be used to further develop and future proof our businesses going forwards.

 

[FarmyStu]

Farmy Stu, you haven't answered my second question.

My 2nd para answers your 2nd question? What did I miss?

 

[FarmyStu]

You are as bad as RT at carefully phrasing your questions! How about you explain beforehand that the legal requirement is for three yearly test and that imported grain may or may not have been produced to that requirement. Now ask them whether the British Farmer should have to test every year when their foreign counterpart and the legal requirement is 3 year.
In reality, I would bet that the vast majority of farmers have their sprayer checked over professionally each year anyway - its the pointless box ticking we object to

How about this then:

Some imported grain may have have had chemical applications with sprayers that have never been tested. Some UK farmers only test every 3 years and some break the law and don't even do this. Red Tractor standards currently dictate that sprayers are tested every year. There is a push by some RT assured farmers to change sprayer testing from once a year, to once very 3 years (the minimum legal standard). Would this A. Raise standards B. Maintain standards C. Lower standards.

The result would be exactly the same in my opinion. Although I'm sure some concern would be expressed about the other standards mentioned.

 

[Jackall]

To farmy stu. I would be interested if you would enlighten me what area of agriculture you specialise or connected in. If you are in another area other than farming it would be nice to know so I could reply to your concerns.

 

[FarmyStu]

To farmy stu. I would be interested if you would enlighten me what area of agriculture you specialise or connected in. If you are in another area other than farming it would be nice to know so I could reply to your concerns.

What concerns? What area of agriculture are you in? A quick check of my past posts would tell you what I have done and what I do now. I've been asked a million times already!!

 

[Jackall]

I just asked a question. You seem a little touchy. i can’t be bothered to look back at your previous posts.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

My 2nd para answers your 2nd question? What did I miss?

You are the one using the term " legal minimum standard" not me.

What you don't realise is that there's no difference between UK standard and within the law and Farm assured. (I'll come back to the 1 or 3 year sprayer thing).

The point here as any farmer reading this will recognise, is that there are various government agencies, mostly but not all DEFRA, who carry out all kinds of inspections on farms and processing plants. Who have real authority and actually observe and enforce the law. Have you heard of cross compliance, the meat hygiene service the vla (sorry that one's got a new name now APHA I think), nvz's, the food safety authority, HSE or trading standards? Do you know what a Pa 1 or pa 6 is? This is all serious legal stuff which farmers take really seriously. Which is what's so stupid about farm assurance, it has no authority and no meaning and that's why farmers treat it with such disdain.

So my question which you didn't answer is why do you think we need a third party to police the UK legal standard?


You appear to have a low opinion of farmers. I don't. There's no end of education, testing and cpd going on in the industry. Your comments about a race to the bottom are not compatible with the vast majority of farmers I know.

 

[DrWazzock]

How many times does it need saying that just because boxes are ticked and records written it does not mean that anything has actually been done on the ground. This blind faith in bureaucracy astonishes me. Maybe it works in corporate staffing structures where there is peer review and supervisory verification that tasks recorded have actually been done but in sole trader businesses as many farms now are, it is meaningless window dressing.
And then there is the sprayer MOT idiotically transposed directly from the world of motoring because that’s the only simplistic world these people understand. Once in three years would be enough to check structural items like chassis and tank. The rest is inspected and maintained, modified and adjusted every time we take the machine out. It really would be a race to the bottom if we relied on the annual MOT and used it for the year without checking anything ourselves. As I say, it’s nothing more than meaningless whitewash to appease the moaners and haters of all things agricultural who never will be satisfied and should be told to go and mind their own business.

 

[SilliamWhale]

You are as bad as RT at carefully phrasing your questions! How about you explain beforehand that the legal requirement is for three yearly test and that imported grain may or may not have been produced to that requirement. Now ask them whether the British Farmer should have to test every year when their foreign counterpart and the legal requirement is 3 year.
In reality, I would bet that the vast majority of farmers have their sprayer checked over professionally each year anyway - its the pointless box ticking we object to

Farmers check their own sprayers anyway all the time. The idea that we go around with broken nozzles is just ridiculous

 

[theboytheboy]

Farmers check their own sprayers anyway all the time. The idea that we go around with broken nozzles is just ridiculous

Agreed. Inputs are far too valuable to waste by lashing them all over the place for the sake of sorting a few leaks or calibrating a spreader.

 

[MrNoo]

A plant on Red Tractors part????The only plants are turnips like yourself who accuse anyone with a different point of view to your own of being a plant!!

It's just your incessant moaning about this and that, you are a troll, pure and simple.
It's fine if you have a different view, life would be very dull indeed if we all had the same view but a lot of people on this thread have been kind enough to point out and dispel any topics you seem to have concerns with, yet you still moan on.
You are contributing nothing to this thread, you are not RT assured, you know zero about what it's actually like, you fill your father in laws fert records in or suchlike, so now you know everything about RT.
You come across as a complete cock and just like RT I am sick of you.

 

[Dave645]

I'm not doing it for fun but I'm not on a mission either. I just have an opinion and a few spare minutes to type it out. I'm not a devotee of Red Tractor, but have no problem with assurance as a good thing. I think RT is too easy to pass due to lax inspections in many cases. I've been on farm for a few RT inspections and the inspectors have been too keen to get inside to look at paperwork rather than having a good look around the livestock and buildings.

I don't think anything produced to UK legal standards needs a scheme. That was what others have suggested. I think it's daft. Who would NOT tick the box saying "produced to minimum legal standards"??? But don't kid yourself that "produced to legal minimum standards" is some sort of assurance. It's exactly what it says it is. The minimum legal. And without some sort of regular check, some will produce to standards lower than that, as they do now. In fact we know that some produce to lower than legal standards despite being RT. But overall I'd guess this happens more with non RT farmers than it does with them. (That's not to say that there aren't some very high quality producers who aren't RT, as I know there are).

Imports have to be "assured" not "farm assured". Some are obviously produced to lower standards than our own legal produce, let alone RT produce. If mixed with our own RT stuff, it retains assured status, but not RT status. Not ideal, but only RT grain is RT. Once mixed it is no longer RT or sold as such. Some on here seem to want a race to the bottom, to be able to produce to foreign standards. In my opinion, this is simply not a runner. Your customers don't want it and if the public got wind of such a reduction in UK standards, done at the behest of UK farmers, the reputational damage to UK ag would be immense IMO.

I do sometimes detect a bit of a luddite attitude to some pf the posts on here. "Assurance used to be ok but now it's gone too far". "I just want to be left alone to farm as I always have". Things change and they always will. Complaining is human nature but to really believe that you can turn back the clock to "the good old days" is delusional.

I keep reading on here that people don't want to lower standards, but just to match those of imports, If you believe that, then I'd ask this: If a 1000 consumers were polled on the following question:

There is a push by some RT assured farmers to change sprayer testing from once a year, to once very 3 years. Would this A. Raise standards B. Maintain standards C. Lower standards.

Where, in all honesty, do you think the consensus would be? I'm guessing it wouldn't be A or B........

Ok I see where your making a mistake in your assumptions, to quote you “If mixed with our own RT stuff, it retains assured status, but not RT status. “

this is false when it comes to animal feed, so that nice pic you posted, those animals could have been fed feed grain that was not RT or farm assured at all, but the farmer has to by assured feed to be RT assured. The only thing that makes it assured is the importer.
Yes as you point out the suggestion allows for feed from non assured farms so again that makes our point, RT meat from uk farms doesn’t require RT assured feed wheat yet we do have to be RT or we have limited outlets for our grain, even thought by rights it’s still higher than imported crops, this is our point uk minimum is still higher than imports. The imports that may have zero checks and used along side ours, and these imports peg uk prices down so remove the premium we may have gotten.
It’s true when it come to milling wheat, RT require it to be not mixed to be classed by RT as RT, but that is why you will be hard pushed to find RT flour based consumer products on shop shelves.

These are the points you seem to ignore, and why people have difficulty believing you when you say you have no skin in the game, because you ignore facts to push what looks like an agenda.

I actually do believe your just someone with another opinion. It’s a pity your so sure of your facts when your wrong, and that you belittle those that you do know the truth but we are called by you Whinges, that complain about moisture meter testing.
That by the way is very belittling of you to say, and to the point we are making, and it tells me that the facts and reality have very little to do with you points.
What you want is the illusion that RT have created. In every true sense RT doesn’t deliver what you think it does not even close, because of the reasons we have said.

Show me a red tractor assured flour based product? That has a RT label.
So you can be happy the millions of pounds and thousands of hours of uk farms time has not been wasted on a sick joke, perpetrated by RT.

This is for every farmer producing milling wheat under RT rules that is required of them to sell it. But where are the products it’s going into. Because as you said bread products cannot have a RT logo unless it’s RT assured only going into it. . . Which is our point for their to be a real premium there has to be a product that uses it. For RT to justify farmers paying and time spent on rules that have no meaning because our products just get mixed with non RT products.

Show me a RT animal product that has only had RT feed crops used in it ? And all the other ingredients are also RT assured. They don’t exist because it’s not a requirement of the scheme. . .

You will soon see what we all know it’s a marketing gimmick that has no value that’s passed to the farmer.
Meat which we are not talking about in this thread which you seem to forget. Has no need to buy RT assured feeds from mills or strictly crop RT assured crops to feed to animals and still get RT stickers to assure there animals.

So us Whinges that are dealing with true double standards making real points would like you to apologise for calling this whinges.
The reality is all meat is not true RT
Finally I have never seen any product on a shop shelf that uses RT logo on a non meat product.
So as we keep saying, why are us crop farmers having to comply to RT to be classed as assured when imports don’t have to, to be assured? But still get used by all the millers, all the bread we eat is non RT it’s just assured that means it’s mixed with imports and we get no premium.
This is why we want a simplified scheme so we are not filling in pointless paper work that has zero to do with our crops quality.

 

[traineefarmer]

Whatever the intentions of a recent arrival to this thread, it has turned from an interesting, if slightly hot tempered discussion about the future of RT in cereal crops into a sub-nursery school tantrum of he-said-she-said.

The interesting developments from the hard work of @Grass And Grain and others has moved onto other threads now, so I will leave this one alone before we're told that big brothers will be waiting outside the school gates.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

It's just your incessant moaning about this and that, you are a troll, pure and simple.
It's fine if you have a different view, life would be very dull indeed if we all had the same view but a lot of people on this thread have been kind enough to point out and dispel any topics you seem to have concerns with, yet you still moan on.
You are contributing nothing to this thread, you are not RT assured, you know zero about what it's actually like, you fill your father in laws fert records in or suchlike, so now you know everything about RT.
You come across as a complete cock and just like RT I am sick of you.

Keep it civil please. Stick to the subject.

 

[JP1]

I'm not doing it for fun but I'm not on a mission either. I just have an opinion and a few spare minutes to type it out. I'm not a devotee of Red Tractor, but have no problem with assurance as a good thing. I think RT is too easy to pass due to lax inspections in many cases. I've been on farm for a few RT inspections and the inspectors have been too keen to get inside to look at paperwork rather than having a good look around the livestock and buildings.

I don't think anything produced to UK legal standards needs a scheme. That was what others have suggested. I think it's daft. Who would NOT tick the box saying "produced to minimum legal standards"??? But don't kid yourself that "produced to legal minimum standards" is some sort of assurance. It's exactly what it says it is. The minimum legal. And without some sort of regular check, some will produce to standards lower than that, as they do now. In fact we know that some produce to lower than legal standards despite being RT. But overall I'd guess this happens more with non RT farmers than it does with them. (That's not to say that there aren't some very high quality producers who aren't RT, as I know there are).

Imports have to be "assured" not "farm assured". Some are obviously produced to lower standards than our own legal produce, let alone RT produce. If mixed with our own RT stuff, it retains assured status, but not RT status. Not ideal, but only RT grain is RT. Once mixed it is no longer RT or sold as such. Some on here seem to want a race to the bottom, to be able to produce to foreign standards. In my opinion, this is simply not a runner. Your customers don't want it and if the public got wind of such a reduction in UK standards, done at the behest of UK farmers, the reputational damage to UK ag would be immense IMO.

I do sometimes detect a bit of a luddite attitude to some pf the posts on here. "Assurance used to be ok but now it's gone too far". "I just want to be left alone to farm as I always have". Things change and they always will. Complaining is human nature but to really believe that you can turn back the clock to "the good old days" is delusional.

I keep reading on here that people don't want to lower standards, but just to match those of imports, If you believe that, then I'd ask this: If a 1000 consumers were polled on the following question:

There is a push by some RT assured farmers to change sprayer testing from once a year, to once very 3 years. Would this A. Raise standards B. Maintain standards C. Lower standards.

Where, in all honesty, do you think the consensus would be? I'm guessing it wouldn't be A or B........

How about a consumer poll asking:

If you could buy bread that all met the same standards would you support flour mills being banned from mixing up flour from foreign sources that do no meet the UK standard? What would they say?

Furthermore

Consumer poll : Would you support a better food labelling system that would mean you could clearly see where your meat was produced not just cut up and therefore identify if meat comes from other countries where there are systems still in place that would be illegal for UK livestock farmers ?

Rhetorical questions as we all realise the answers that would come back but £££££ are at play

I'm now out of RT because no inspector ever actually looked at my stock my pride and joy but insisted I was incapable of updating my OWN herd health plan. ££ on ££ on ££ and it's not worth it any more sadly. The racket needs to pull back on mission creep and get back to basics

Better regulatory control of the power of supermarkets monopoly of the food chain and ACCURATE food labelling will yield much much more