If you want to see what other farmers think of the levy boards then it is worth wading through the results of the survey work that Accenture has recently carried out on behalf of DEFRA. It shows what people think should be the priorities of the new levy board and the six sector companies.
There are some common themes – farmers in every sector think that more emphasis should be put on consumer information and promotion. They also think far less emphasis should be put on activities around farm assurance schemes.
The comment about assurance schemes activities highlights just how fed up many farmers are with the whole assurance concept.
But if the bulk of farmers weren’t in them could we still claim (or more importantly prove) that British food is world class when it comes to quality?
Comments (2)
We don't make enough of that claim anyway. Take the current avian flu scare, for example. Where's the robust defence from the assurance body? The industry doesn't make anything like enough mileage out of what it has invested millions of pounds and thousands of hours in. Instead of hanging its head in shame it should be stoutly defending its integrity and pointing out that it is thanks to assurance that cases like this are dealt with so quickly and effectively. Other countries could not demonstrate such a swift and efficient response - yet their lower-cost produce steals shelf space in our supermarkets.
Comment left on February 6, 2007 12:18 PM
Posted on February 6, 2007 12:18
The Farm/Food assurance debate comes sharply into view whenever we have an alarm such as the present bird flu/Bernard Matthews situation. It is, however, also as much a symptom of many problems in modern food production as it is a means of addressing them. The so-called 'disconnect' between producer and consumer means that the consumer sees a wrapped piece of meat in a supermarket, looks at the price and makes his or her buying decision accordingly.
Most consumers have had every chance to see film clips of how intensively farmed poultry is kept. They have had every chance to hear the allegations of baseball being played with live turkeys. There have been many programmes on television showing why a free range bird is so much better than an intensively reared one. The opportunities for the consumer to learn more about their food over the last few years have been numerous. Yet still the consumer considers it a bargain to be able to buy 2 chickens for around a fiver from a number of leading supermarkets.
Assurance schemes connect only rarely with the consumer. They are more a way for a supermarket to tick a box which satisfies them that a certain number of production criteria have been reached. For products sold in supermarkets, assurance schemes should achieve a certain level of comfort. For the small, perhaps more specialised producer, however, that comfort level is far too low.
I sense a wave of pressure coming at small producers such as myself to conform to one or more assurance scheme. If small scale high quality, specialist producers are hoodwinked into joining the same schemes as the large-scale industrial producers, the effect will be to enhance the perception of the 'industrially' produced product while degrading the value of the true craft style producer.
People buy food for a wide range of reasons, but ultimately one of the most important of those reasons is trust. I believe that people buy from smaller independent outlets and in some cases directly from a small producer because they attain a sense of ownership in both the business and the products they are buying. They tust the person or the business they are buying from.
Trust and education are far more powerful than any assurance scheme will ever be.
www.northfieldfarm.com www.myspace.com/janmccourt
Comment left on February 13, 2007 2:11 PM
Posted on February 13, 2007 14:11