What’s involved in triggering a vote on AHDB cereals?

[Drillman]

In light of the latest let down for farmers who pay there wages (see the red tractor sector board passes leadership vote of no confidence thread) what do we need to do to trigger a vote on AHDB cereals future?

The AHDB is clearly still not listening to farmers so time is up and direct action now required to give them a serious wake up call.

 

[principal skinner]

^^^^ yes 100%

 

[graham mc]

isnt a % of levypayers. the only problem no one knows how many there are so it wont happen sadly

 

[JP1]

isnt a % of levypayers. the only problem no one knows how many there are so it wont happen sadly

This has to be clarified. Even AHDB don't know necessarily who their levy payers are (eg red meat levy taken by slaughterhouses and market operators etc)

 

[Treacle Sponge]

This has to be clarified. Even AHDB don't know necessarily who their levy payers are (eg red meat levy taken by slaughterhouses and market operators etc)

That's a cop out. There is obviously a paper trail for every payment.

 

[Rnold]

That's a cop out. There is obviously a paper trail for every payment.

I 'am a levy payer. I can prove this if required for a vote. It's printed on the invoice as to how much they have taken along with my business name and address.

Gladly show an invoice in return for a ballot paper.

 

[An Gof]

Details here https://ahdb.org.uk/levy-information

 

[graham mc]

it needs a lot of publicity before people actually vote as theres a time limit on it. get a good campain going then get people to vote otherwise it will drag out slowly and that wont work

the potato guys managed it fine so the cereals guys should manage fine as well

 

[Tarw Coch]

it needs a lot of publicity before people actually vote as theres a time limit on it. get a good campain going then get people to vote otherwise it will drag out slowly and that wont work

the potato guys managed it fine so the cereals guys should manage fine as well

They spent a lot of time on here debating it first, @simon w and @White rabbit IIRC
I think the topic was titled blood sucking ahdb, it will be in the AHDB section on here.

 

[texelburger]

There does need to be a vote as they've stalled on RT and the review along with the inequality with imported cereals.They certainly don't appear to support their levy payers assured or not.

Maybe,just maybe there are things going on behind scenes,won't hold my breath though.

 

[Hesstondriver]

surely it wouldn't be difficult to find 678 disgruntled arable farmers who grow OSR or linseed ? .

that would stir things up for a start

 

[Tarw Coch]

It would seem Nicholas Sapphire thinks farm assurance is vitally important

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

It would seem Nicholas Sapphire thinks farm assurance is vitally important

Not so vital that he wants to pay for it.

 

[Grass And Grain]

It would seem Nicholas Sapphire thinks farm assurance is vitally important

VITALLY important. Strong words. Wonder if the fact they part own Assured Food Standards has any influence on their stance.

For over 3 years they've been told about cereals, and they did very little for first 30 months.

Could even say they went out of their way to make it look like they were doing something, but we're just entertaining us.

We "should be seen to be listening".

"The farmers are getting the upper hand (in the discussion"

And rushing off to tell AIC, RT, NFU and UK Flour Millers "for the purposes of keeping you all in the loop" that the pesky levy payers are trying to derail our cosy little plan to ensure all farmers are trapped in assurance so we can control them and add in any standards we want.

Absolutely no comment from AHDB that AIC said imports could use Gatekeeper but home producers weren't allowed to because "there was no demand for it". That was chaired by Tom Bradshaw and NFU didn't comment on it. Just swept it under the carpet.

Did Tom chair those meetings in a manner that he was content with? Or did Minette control things? My guess would be Tom did what he was told to do. That's a shame if that was the case, and if it was the case I would blame the people who were pulling the strings. It probably lost NFU a lot of members.

Anyway, hopefully some good changes now Tom is in charge.

 

[Grass And Grain]

Not so vital that he wants to pay for it.

If processors and retailers want assurance, but then run off and buy imports, they should pay our assurance costs. Supermarkets could get charged a new AHDB levy for meat, dairy, fruit veg, bakery and beer products, then we could have our levy reduced (to help pay for our assurance).

 

[Grass And Grain]

It would seem Nicholas Sapphire thinks farm assurance is vitally important

I know I bang on about this, but the absolute premium meat sales happen at the independent butchers shop. High consumer trust, and most of those butchers shops don't bother with RT, but instead have the local authority food hygiene 1-5 inspection rating up in the window. Us consumers totally trust that system.

So why do we need RT to wedge themselves between us and supermarkets, and charge us for an inspection that we can get for free from the local authority and that LA inspection is highly regarded by consumers.

I'd even wager that way more consumers recognise and understand the green food hygiene notice compared to the Red Tractor logo. The food hygiene rating is recognised by most people, so why not just accept the same inspectors/inspections for farm assurance.

Mr Saphir says assurance is vital. Can he tell us if he thinks food premises inspected by the local authority food hygiene inspectors are producing safe food? Is it a good inspection? Or are farms inspected by this method selling unsafe food?

^^^ If the food standards inspections are deemed by AHDB to not be good enough and there's risk of dangerous food, then AHDB need to tell the consumers about this food safety issue they've identified.
*If, however, AHDB see these inspection to be robust and ensure safe food, then that's our assurance and reputation taken care of, and AHDB then need to say RT isn't necessary as legislation already takes care of food safety.

Then RT is only any use as a marketing gimmick by the retailers, so then they should commit to purchasing the safe food from the LA inspected farms, and offer a price premium for RT. Then they'll have to offer a decent premium to get it. Price too low and they'll get zero RT produce. Better payment rate and they'll get more % RT produce.

 

[texelburger]

VITALLY important. Strong words. Wonder if the fact they part own Assured Food Standards has any influence on their stance.

For over 3 years they've been told about cereals, and they did very little for first 30 months.

Could even say they went out of their way to make it look like they were doing something, but we're just entertaining us.

We "should be seen to be listening".

"The farmers are getting the upper hand (in the discussion"

And rushing off to tell AIC, RT, NFU and UK Flour Millers "for the purposes of keeping you all in the loop" that the pesky levy payers are trying to derail our cosy little plan to ensure all farmers are trapped in assurance so we can control them and add in any standards we want.

Absolutely no comment from AHDB that AIC said imports could use Gatekeeper but home producers weren't allowed to because "there was no demand for it". That was chaired by Tom Bradshaw and NFU didn't comment on it. Just swept it under the carpet.

Did Tom chair those meetings in a manner that he was content with? Or did Minette control things? My guess would be Tom did what he was told to do. That's a shame if that was the case, and if it was the case I would blame the people who were pulling the strings. It probably lost NFU a lot of members.

Anyway, hopefully some good changes now Tom is in charge.

I think,initially, when the controversy over RT and non assured imported grain blew up AHDB along with NFU and AIC thought it would all die a death and their cosy club would continue .So they made the right noises,to keep us sweet, but never had any intention of forcing change.
What a bizarre situation we were in.AHDB taking levy off growers and giving £250,000 of it each year to RT who were then charging us to become members and comply to increasingly stringent standards to keep their puppet masters,the BRC,happy.Meanwhile they were all happy to let non assured imports enter the UK and the supermarkets were very happy to put this non traceable, non assured produce on their shelves.
It seems that they were all determined to discriminate against UK producers by imposing more and more standards with ever increasing costs.And the NFU were privy to this and happy at the time,what on earth were they thinking.

Roll on two or three years and things are changing thanks to the people who realised change was needed and the subsequent BFU.There is a long way to go but things are happening,I just can't understand how we ever were in that position. All we want is fairness with regards imported grain and assurance.Surely that's not too much to ask.

 

[Grass And Grain]

I think,initially, when the controversy over RT and non assured imported grain blew up they along with NFU and AIC thought it would all die a death and their cosy club would continue .So they made the right noises,to keep us sweet, but never had any intention of forcing change.
What a bizarre situation we were in.AHDB taking levy off growers and giving £250,000 of it each year to RT who were then charging us to become members and comply to increasingly stringent standards to keep their puppet masters,the BRC,happy.Meanwhile they were all happy to let non assured imports enter the UK and the supermarkets were very happy to put this non traceable, non assured produce on their shelves.
It seems that they were all determined to discriminate against UK producers by imposing more and more standards with ever increasing costs.And the NFU were privy to this and happy at the time,what on earth were they thinking.

Roll on two or three years and things are changing thanks to the people who realised change was needed and the subsequent BFU.There is a long way to go but things are happening,I just can't understand how we ever were in that position. All we want is fairness with regards imported grain and assurance.Surely that's not too much to ask.

Good summary of the situation.

I also can't understand how the industry got into such a situation.

It was like no-one had noticed imports weren't assured. All these people did was bang on about and convince themselves we needed RT Combinables assurance. There was absolutely zero benefit to us when the whole of the rest of the world wasn't assured. That was the calibre of our leaders and decision makers. Each and every one of them absolutely hopeless. Thinking they were some sort of wise folk, and knew what was good for us peasants (who are too thick to know what's good for us).

They've also used RT to control us. To ensure NRoSO had uptake (wonder how many non-RT farmers are NRoSO members ).

Nicholas Saphir needs to take a long hard look at what AHDB did and how bad their strategy was. All the publicity around this subject and he still trotts out the line that "assurance is vital". Is he trying to get our backs up?

Do we really want him as AHDB chair? Not only that, but when it came to the recent levy increase proposals it's obvious they deliberately didn't let farmer levy payers have a say or vote on it. They knew that was too risky. It was underhand. A four year old could see straight through what they did.

It's not farmers who need a private assurance company checking up on their work, it's AHDB who need independently auditing and holding to account.

They spaffed millions of £££ of levy on Red Tractor, collaborated in making sure farms had no choice but to be RT members to access markets so they then had control of us and could say RT was a success, had to prop RT up to stop them going bankrupt, and did this whilst they knew full well that mills were buying non-assured imports.

AHDB have got some serious work to do to correct their previous incompetence and bad decision making. Boils my blood.

Slight signs we might get some improvement in the situation, but they'd better deliver. After the reviews, if we get told RT is great, RT standards need to remain the same, and all you farmers have to pay up.... then they can expect the full wrath of the BFU.

 

[graham mc]

they can expect the full wrath of the BFU.

the trouble is this has been said time and time before then they give u a little one line of hope and you give them another year or so to change and in that time they shaft you again.

time to do what us spud boys did

 

[Grass And Grain]

the trouble is this has been said time and time before then they give u a little one line of hope and you give them another year or so to change and in that time they shaft you again.

time to do what us spud boys did

Frustrating, and we have been previously fobbed off, but crunch time is coming isn't it.

For cereals they've got to make market access easier. If they come back and say "everything's fine, RT is great, we've discussed it, now go away" then I think they can expect us to be unhappy and organise an existential vote.