Farmer Focus: Red Tractor delivers no premium with cattle

To be, or not to be… farm assured? Welcome to the two-tier beef industry.

We take in cattle from retained farmer customers, marts and livestock procurement companies, and have seen a gradual shift away from farm-assured cattle.

It would seem the small and medium store cattle producers have taken the deliberate decision to opt out of Red Tractor on cost and administration grounds.

Do I blame them? Not at all. They receive the same price as for farm-assured cattle, with no hassle.

See also: Farmers Weekly Podcast Ep 124: Challenges for Defra and Red Tractor heads

About the author

Doug Dear

Livestock Farmer Focus writer

Doug Dear farms 566ha (1,400 acres) of arable land growing wheat, spring and winter barley, maize and oilseed rape and runs a custom feedyard, contract-finishing about 2,400 cattle a year near Selby, North Yorkshire. Most cattle are finished over 90-120 days for nine deadweight outlets, as well as Selby and Thirsk markets.

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There is now a buoyant market for non-farm-assured cattle and grain, with very limited penalisation on price (if any, on fat cattle). So, do we all go non-farm assured? No chance.

As our feedlot is the last link in the supply chain, I unfortunately have no choice but to be farm assured.

This adds another level of complication when selecting prime cattle, as we must check the farm assurance status first.

This is reducing our efficiency in the time taken to complete the required task, and in having to hold over cattle for 90 days, when I could finish them in 70.

Farm assurance is becoming a major belligerence. Father keeps more records than the KGB. It’s time the pendulum swung the other way, but clearly retailers are forcing the route of travel.

I have opted for a turnkey solution – pay someone else to collate the information, freeing me up to get on with farming.

If you want true participation, and not just tick-box exercises, farmer stakeholders must have more control and stick to their convictions.

We have been incredibly busy on two fronts. Usually, we have a gradual entry of grazed cattle, entering the unit for a 90-day finish.

But that’s been more of a torrent, as there isn’t a blade of grass left in some parts.  

Simultaneously, we have been trying to juggle pen resident customers (a customer who has an allocation of cattle numbers; as they exit we put more entries in).

The second big job has been autumn drilling.

Here’s a thought: instead of us all getting bent out of shape about drilling start dates, why not think about the date you need to finish, bearing in mind the amount of work in front of you and the resources available?