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.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 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........
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