This blog is the full (unedited) piece, written by George Dunn, TFA Chief Executive, for The Cumberland News and Westmorland Gazette, published on 31 May 2024.

Following the recent vote of no confidence in the Red Tractor Executive by the members of its Beef and Lamb Board, I was asked in a webinar whether the TFA had confidence in Red Tractor.  My response was to say that whether the TFA had confidence was neither here nor there, what was important was the views of the members of the TFA and it was quite clear that in the main, they didn’t have confidence in Red Tractor.  The reasons for that are many including the ratcheting up of standards at the apparent behest of retailers who, in return, are not prepared to provide sufficient value back to farmers and growers.  There is also a concern about the lack of openness in the way in which Red Tractor goes about its business particularly in the way it sets its standards.  Given that the standards are consumer facing, there are a number which don’t seem to make a lot of sense to what consumers would be looking for in a product.  However, I said that TFA members would forgive all of that if Red Tractor could demonstrate that that there was value to them in the standards they were adhering to.  If they could see that the billions of pounds of retail spend on products with the Red Tractor logo was also helping to provide a fair return to their businesses, they could then see the benefit of the Scheme and have confidence in it.

For a long time, the TFA has argued that Red Tractor should do more work to measure the true value that is delivered by its standards, both to consumers and by extension to farmers.  Too many of the current standards appear to have little, auditable value within supply chains.  There has been no analysis of the differential impact that complying with Red Tractor standards has in terms of the value chain in comparison to food products bought and sold without the benefit of a Red Tractor accreditation.  This work is essential in order to be able to demonstrate the value of the Red Tractor system.  Too much is left to conjecture or subjective analysis.  Just because the Red Tractor logo appears on a significant amount of food sold by value, does not necessarily mean that it is adding value to that produce.  A long-running case in point is the situation for cereal and oilseeds producers who regularly, and for many years, have seen their output mixed with non-assured grains in the human and animal food production process.  As noted above, if there are value gains these are captured by processors and retailers and do not filter down to the farm businesses which have to comply with a continuing raising of the bar in the standards through the Red Tractor scheme.  Perhaps the recent launch of the full scale review of assurance schemes will provide some answers to this conundrum

However, the recently concluded governance review into Red Tractor was a major, missed opportunity.  Whilst it recognised the existential crisis faced by Red Tractor if trust was not rebuilt, it did nothing to speak into how that might be achieved.  Certainly, the governance of Red Tractor needs to be more open and accountable.  For an organisation which has considerable influence over the farming industry its current governance structures are inadequate for the level of accountability needed back to the farming industry.  Red Tractor full and sector boards should hold more open meetings and publish the minutes of all their meetings for scrutiny.  Opportunities for questions to be raised at those meetings by farmers who are subject to the accreditation scheme should also be provided.  A more robust and open governance structure with clear lines of accountability to farmers and growers will engender a greater degree of confidence in the system and less suspicion.

Associated reading:

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