Overkill for Scots assurance schemes

03 March 1998

Overkill for Scots assurance schemes

SCOTTISH agriculture could end up with a hotchpotch of farm assurance schemes which will be difficult to police and highly confusing, warns information management consultant Michael Hooton.

Some 100,000 Scottish farming businesses have signed up with at least one programme. He said there must be a rationalisation of these separate schemes and a common farm system that cuts across the whole industry.

He has now set up Food Trak, which plans to communicate food safety through the latest information technology.

Under Mr Hootons Food Trak system farmers would use computers
to store a wide range of information on a programme designed by Hooton. In turn, this information would be available to customers who would access the date by means of a code.

His system has been on trial with food companies and has resulted in one case where a business was able to track down as problem in its frozen vegetable department within four hours which would normally have taken four days.