This blog is the full (unedited) piece, written by George Dunn, TFA Chief Executive, for The East Anglian Daily Times, published on 30 March 2023.  Note: At the end of this article, there is an update to the piece, added on 25 April 2024.

The news from the Board of Red Tractor that the proposed Greener Farm Commitment will be shelved will have landed with a great sense of relief within the farming community. However, that relief will not be borne out of some antithesis to the environmental agenda.  Indeed the majority of farmers and growers are already fully engaged in integrating environmental outcomes into their food production systems and have a desire to go further. Like anything else produced or grown on farm, the production of environmental outcomes, be they around landscape, biodiversity, carbon services or public access, come at a cost. The problem with the Greener Farm Commitment was that it threatened to rob farmers of any ability to recover their costs or reward from the marketplace.

Although disputed by Red Tractor, it was very clear that the major retailers were lining up to use the Greener Farm Commitment as a basis for achieving their own green goals, including in respect of commitments that they had signed up to with the WWF basket.  No surprise then that the first announcement made about the development of the new module came from the British Retail Consortium. Of course, supply chains will be demanding more and more by way of environmental safeguards and improvements but those same supply chains must ensure that the value to Society of those outcomes are properly factored into pricing decisions and that primary producers and growers receive a fair share of the value added within the chain for their risk and labour.

The track record of Red Tractor in ensuring that farmers and growers are properly rewarded for the standards they meet has not been good. Despite the fact that £14 billion of British food and drink is emblazoned with the Red Tractor logo, most farmers feel that they see little real benefit from being Red Tractor assured. Indeed, in many sectors, it has effectively become a licence to farm. Equally the espoused goal of Red Tractor to minimise the number of inspections which take place at farm level is not being fulfilled either. Many farms report that despite the Red Tractor audits that they have to go through on a regular basis, the processors and retailers who many supply often carry out their own audits, some to make sure that the Red Tractor audit has been done properly!

In the recently concluded governance review of Red Tractor, the consultants used, Campbell Tickell concluded that there was an “existential crisis” for Red Tractor due to the lack of support from farmers. Some of that stems from the degree to which farmers feel disenfranchised from the process of developing standards. This certainly came to a head in the plans for the greener farm commitment. To solve that issue, Red Tractor needs to develop a more open style of governance with its board meetings and technical working groups more accountable to the wider farming and growing community through the publication of agendas and minutes and also by streaming more of their meetings and discussions (particularly of board meetings) online. Whilst no one is expecting that farmers will wish to sit through hours and hours of online meetings at least the archive will be available to review when decisions emerge which need to be understood in the context of the way in which they have been discussed and presented within the Red Tractor governance architecture.

In addition, Red Tractor must address, head on, the central concern that through engaging with its processes and procedures, farmers and growers feel that they see very little of the benefit in terms of better returns and margins. That major issue is now to be considered by a second review which will look much more widely than governance and also at other assurance schemes. The industry will be watching closely how that review develops and whether real and meaningful change can be brought in before the “existential threat” previously referred to causes Red Tractor’s demise.

Update:

The TFA invited Jim Moseley, CEO of Red Tractor to speak at the TFA webinar: What Benefit Is Red Tractor to British Farmers and Growers? This 60-minute webinar was broadcast on 25 April 2024.  To watch an on-demand recording, click here: https://bit.ly/tfa24_redtractor_od.

At the end of the event, the TFA issued the following statement of no confidence on behalf of its members. The watch this short video, click here:  https://bit.ly/4b1ftYX