Look for the Red Tractor, to make certain of safe and hygienic food

The grass I have available for cows is diminishing as the hot weather has its effects, and at Tillington the grazing is becoming rougher by the day as the grass puts up seed heads everywhere (mind you we are glad of seed heads for the young stock now). My second cut silage, where we have had no water is now becoming poor and again running to seed. The maize however is looking good, and is up to my knees at Tillington, looking very healthy and totally free from weeds following just one spray this year. It does need a drink though, but seems to have got its roots down well, and found some moisture.

You will no doubt be aware of the E. coli outbreak in Europe, which has now developed into the largest outbreak of this strain of E.coli the world has seen. The link with fresh produce has had a devastating effect on the salad industry right across Europe, and whilst accusations have been flying around, the media predictably went into health scare mode. Consumers on the continent have reacted by not buying salads and many retailers have not been selling various lines of fresh produce.

This is a good opportunity to highlight the Red Tractor in the UK. It is at times like this that Farm Assurance comes into its own, and consumers should know why buying Red Tractor is so important. British consumers can celebrate the high level of food production standards from our professional growers. British cucumbers for example, are produced to world class standards, on well managed nurseries and farms, which have been independently inspected on a regular basis to achieve high standards of food safety, hygiene and environmental protection. The Red tractor delivers exactly that.

Then we had a little media scare attempt with milk, where work by Cambridge scientists has discovered a new strain of MRSA. The scientist have been quick to put all this into perspective by noting that all these bugs are killed in the pasteurisation process, and that milk is of course safe to drink. Once you get down to these microbial levels it is very easy to become confused at best and pretty scared at worst! The scientists have put this all in context by telling us that one person in three carry the MRSA bug, and that (as you would expect) doctors and nurses who are much more exposed to such challenges are bigger carriers than your average citizen.

The link the media was trying to make was that this could in some way be connected to anti-biotic use on dairy farms. Again, look for the Red Tractor, easily found as practically all British dairy farms are Red Tractor assured. We are inspected, monitored, and all our medicine usage has to be recorded meticulously, with dates, animal identification, batch number and so on (just like the doctor in his surgery in fact), and all supervised by the veterinary surgeon, who is also held responsible for prescribing the medicines, and indeed all the farms registered with the practice. There are of course strict conditions and legal withdrawal periods before milk and meat can be sold to the consumer, which again are strictly monitored.

I sit on RUMA (responsible use of medicines in agriculture) as the NFU was a founding member of this alliance, and fully endorse on our members’ behalf the principle of appropriate use of veterinary medicines, including antibiotics. These are administered as little as possible, but as much as is necessary to protect the health and welfare of the animal. I also sit on the Animal Health group in Brussels, where we are constantly monitoring and discussing the use of medicines in agriculture and how we reduce that use sensibly. Medicines are hugely expensive of course, and that in itself has an effect on usage, and it is therefore doubly important that they are used correctly.

There are also good examples of bureaucrats going absolutely mad on food and food safety. Take Denmark, who are going to ban Marmite! Oh yes. Marmite is seen as dangerous due to additives and yes, just to make sure we all know that they have completely lost it in Copenhagen they are also going to ban ‘fortified cereals’; breakfast cereals to you and me. Cereals with added vitamins with a healthy portion of milk in the morning has to be about the healthiest food around? Marmite (love it or hate it – there seems to be no in-between) is pretty harmless and is craved for by all ex-pats (including our daughter Elin in Sydney). This is what happens when we get ‘microbial’.

The debate over an ombudsman has hotted up with government announcing that the ‘adjudicator’ will only name and shame. Peter Kendall (President of the NFU) wants an adjudicator ‘with teeth’ and wants ‘fines that hurt for abuses that hurt’. ‘The Grocer’ magazine states that the government announcement is ‘great news for retailers’, and interestingly states that ‘without the ability to fine, media coverage is likely to be far lower’.

We know full well, and indeed the evidence from the Competition Commission’s recent two year investigation into the grocery sector found that, many supermarkets abuse their suppliers by driving prices down, reducing investment in quality, new products and the long term viability of suppliers businesses to the detriment of consumers. The Competition Commission was very clear in its findings that without sustainable levels of profitability for all in the supply chain, innovation and product development will disappear on supermarket shelves. In other words retailers need protecting from their own short termism, and suicidal competitive instincts; funded of course by others, which permits such activity.

We can see that dairy farmers are short-changed on a daily basis; the pig sector is facing meltdown as supermarkets are refusing to pay any more to meet the rising costs of grain and energy. In the poultry sector, rather than allowing larger chicken on to the shelves to assist the hard pressed consumer (a chicken that would give them three square meals), retailer want smaller chicken as we are in recession, which has a huge effect on poultry producers’ margins. Smaller sizes are much in demand across all sectors ‘to help the consumers in recession’, where as the costs of packaging to the supplier increases as a percentage of the product’s total value.

I’ll leave it to you to guess why some retailers insist that ‘their appointed packages’ are used, which are more expensive and not competitive in the market place, and to cap it all, the retailers have actually increased their margins during all of this, which makes a complete mockery of their pretence that they are ‘helping the consumer’. Their lamentable defence through the British Retail Consortium, is that the adjudicator will add cost to the consumer, and that not one dispute has been raised between a retailer and supplier. Surprise surprise!