Study gives thumbs-up for assurance
07 May 1999
Study gives thumbs-up for assurance
By Jonathan Riley
THE cost of joining the Assured Combinable Crops Scheme (ACCS) is not excessive and is outweighed by the potential benefits of membership, claims a new independent study.
The report, by researchers at London Universitys Wye College, also questions the commonly aired criticism that the cost of the scheme for small or mixed farms is disproportionately high.
“Of the farms used as case studies, the two small farms faced total costs of £330 and £235 respectively,” say findings by researchers Andrew Fearne and Marian Garcia.
“This initial cost is neither unreasonably high nor does it fall disproportionately on small or mixed farms.”
The study found strong demand for the scheme among buyers and concluded that the farmers costs were a small price to pay for securing market access.
It also commends the National Farmes Union (NFU) for taking the “bold and pro-active step when it introduced the ACCS at a time when it faced a no-win situation”.
“To have done nothing would have carried a serious risk that producers would have faced a proliferation of schemes imposed by retailers and buyers in the future,” the report says.
Despite an ongoing investigation into the scheme by the European Unions competition watchdog, the report claims nobody can “argue rationally” that producers are forced to join it.
“Those growers who ignore the demands of their customers and choose not to register are free to gamble on the diminishing market for raw materials for which no assurances are required,” it says.
The researchers found that many people still mistakenly believed that the scheme covered crop quality rather than food safety standards.
But a “widening of the scheme to include quality would provide a useful carrot to offset the safety stick with which farmers have been severely beaten in recent years,” they add.
Many of the reports findings, however, were dismissed by Robert Robertson of the Federation of Small Businesses agriculture committee.
Mr Robertson, whose organisation has consistently opposed the scheme, said the report was nothing but “repetition of NFU dogma”.
“Assurance is not demanded by the consumer,” he said.
“It is wanted by the grain buyers who will always ask for something if it costs them nothing and allows them to continue buying in cheaper, unassured imported grain.
“To establish different trading conditions for each EU member state is a return to past days of national differences.
“Such days can no longer be tolerated by a forward looking EU, particularly as our grain exports are rising currently which surely means that buyers are not demanding British produce is assured.”