NFU / AHDB Farm Assurance Review Published today

The first UK-wide, comprehensive review of farm assurance has called for a fundamental reset of the system to rebuild confidence amongst farmers.
The review, established by the UK farming unions and the Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), was conducted independently by four Commissioners and is published today.

It concludes that farm assurance is critical to the industry’s future, is delivering necessary assurances on quality to consumers but must make some fundamental changes to address growing frustration amongst farmers in how it is delivered.

To that end, the review makes nine strategic recommendations:

1. On-farm audits must be reduced, simplified and delivered more consistently;
2. There must be a transformational step forward in embracing technology;
3. Schemes need to reset and/or restate their structures to establish farmers as the driving voice in standards development;
4. A new industry-led initiative must set out the future environmental ambitions for farm assurance;
5. The inclusion of regulatory requirements within farm assurance should be conditional on government agreeing a form of ‘earned recognition’;
6. There must be greater collaboration between farm assurance schemes across the UK;
7. Schemes must better position the UK farming industry in world food markets and in competition with imported food;
8. All schemes must review and improve their communication with farmers;
9. The Red Tractor scheme must complete the implementation of recommendations in the Campbell Tickell report on its governance.

You can find the report here: https://promar-international.c...