What does the new move from Red Tractor mean for farmers?
Like shoppers, supermarkets must pay for what they want.
If retailers did not have enough clout in the supply chain already, this latest move by Red Tractor tips the scale even further.
What its new Greener Farms Commitment (GFC), due to come into force in six months' time, essentially does, is ask producers to jump through more costly hoops, which will benefit retailers, without any financial benefit being passed back to the farmgate. The retailer gets another important benefit on the house too - farmers' data.
See also: Red Tractor 'crossed line' on new environmental move
The GFC even appears to be in direct contradiction with what the assurance scheme was set up to do in the first place: a scheme backed by the NFU and paid for by farmers, to demonstrate their credentials and to earn a premium by doing so.
Is it now a detached body working on behalf of the supermarkets?
Adding an #environment module to the Red Tractor assurance scheme. Do you agree or disagree with the plans? Please share additional comments below once you have voted. Important to hear all #farmers views on this across the different sectors @FarmersGuardian
— Rachael Brown (@FGRachaelBrown) October 9, 2023
There is no doubt supermarkets are under pressure to demonstrate their supply chain's green credentials while at the same time keeping prices as low as they can for cash-strapped shoppers, but why are farmers expected to shoulder the burden?
They see it as an attempt by retailers to use the GFC as a means of 'greenwashing' imports which do not come close to meeting the standards of the compliant products sitting on the shelf beside them.
While the scheme may be billed as ‘voluntary', inevitably these rules will become the industry standard and everyone will be expected to adhere to it.
Farmers are angry that not only did they hear about this via a press release from the supermarkets' trading representative, the British Retail Consortium, but that there was zero consultation with industry.
And measures introduced by stealth rarely fly.
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Red Tractor says that the GFC represents a ‘common industry approach', but it would make more sense to align with the measures in the payment schemes for natural capital services, being rolled out in all four nations, rather than gold plate them.
The industry is being constantly told to monetise its natural capital and create markets for it to replace the direct payment schemes of old.
But farmers cannot do this if it is handed over for free.
