At a time of great uncertainty for British food exports, and consumer confidence at home because of Brexit, an international benchmarking study of global farm assurance schemes has concluded that the UK Red Tractor farm and food assurance structure offers some of the highest standards world-wide.
The results of the study was announced at a special event hosted by Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe at the House of Lords last week.
Welcoming the news, Red Tractor CEO, Jim Moseley said: “Our standards are world-class as is evidenced by this research and increases our determination to be the flagship of British food and farming. Our vision and the work we are already implementing to develop standards in certain areas will place Red Tractor firmly at the centre of UK agriculture worldwide. However, our focus remains working hard to ensure that every standard is in place on every farm, every day.”
The study looked at prominent global schemes, some of which compete with the UK, and the results show the breadth and depth of Red Tractor especially in areas such as traceability and food safety. The organisation believe that the findings strengthen its position as the fully embracing scheme which can act as the flagship for quality British food both at home and abroad.
The research was conducted over the past six months by independent Nuffield Scholar Dr. Jonathan Birnie. Dr Birnie holds a PhD from the Agricultural Research Institute of Northern Ireland (now AFBI) & Queens University. He has worked for both Dunbia and Sainsbury’s.
Dr Birnie attended and spoke at the House of Lords event saying: “As a complete scheme, Red Tractor is the highest performing on an international basis. While there are areas that could be developed, the existing scheme is comprehensive and a great foundation on which to build these additional standards. I have come away with a great amount of confidence in Red Tractor following my detailed comparable analysis of all food sectors globally.”
Findings include that for beef and lamb, Red Tractor was found to be the strongest overall scheme in terms of breadth and depth. Red Tractor husbandry standards are also above all broad coverage schemes, but behind the high welfare schemes.
Red Tractor was also found to be consistently world-leading in traceability and food safety. In the food safety arena, Red Tractor performs well against all other schemes. Especially noted is the provision of specific and detailed standards. Red Tractor also performed very well in terms of staff training standards.
However, the study reports that worker welfare or the ethical treatment of agricultural workers is not well covered by nearly all farm assurance schemes across the globe and provision of significant development is required across all schemes, including Red Tractor.
For broiler chickens new enrichment standards are very robust and almost in line with the RSPCA (bales, perches and pecking objects). In pigs, Red Tractor was found to be strong in antibiotic usage monitoring, however there are still opportunities for Red Tractor to develop its welfare standards in areas that have been identified, for example, space and enrichment.
The findings will support Red Tractor’s planned development to cover specialist areas such as higher welfare, environmental enhancement and organic production. In his speech Mr Moseley added: “While specialist schemes may have higher standards on specific single issues, they do not offer the breadth across all aspects of farm production. Our ambition is to combine the current robust core of Red Tractor with additional standards on single issues to create a broader and stronger offer.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
