Interest in scheme growing – UKFQC
Interest in scheme growing – UKFQC
INTEREST in the Assured Combinable Crops Scheme and applications to join it are growing, according to Bill Young of administrator UKFQC.
Individual registration requests were running at about 50 a day at the start of the week. Backing that are several big grain co-ops which plan to sign members up en-bloc, Mr Young adds.
Nearly 60 inspectors have been appointed and are due to begin training next week at Shuttleworth College. Further courses for northern assessors are scheduled for February.
A few dissenters at the dozen or so explanatory meetings last week were generally persuaded to change their minds once the ACCS case had been made clear, Mr Young maintains.
Delegates at the Association of Independent Crop Consultants meeting in Buxton were especially enthusiastic, he adds. "They were fully behind us, telling us we were on just the right lines to improve farmers efficiency and marketing." *
Maltsters backing
Maltsters are giving the ACCS their full backing. "We are aware that there has been opposition in some quarters of the farming industry," says Bob King, the Maltsters Association of Great Britain representative on the ACC Board. "The principles of quality assurance and traceability are already with us, whether some people like it or not, and producers ignore the situation at their peril."