Top-fruit growers at the British Independent Fruit Growers’ Association (BIFGA) farm walk in Kent last week were in a conciliatory frame of mind on the continuing issue of assurance schemes.

Attending his first meeting as vice-chairman of the National Farmers’ Union Horticulture Board, Essex pepper grower Gary Taylor said he was expecting a fairly militant reception, but that “many of the comments that came back to me were very positive. It was clear again that one of the main drivers is to reduce the bureaucratic burden by reducing duplication of work.”

The support of the supermarkets is vital, he said, and each have their own added requirements - for example, Waitrose suppliers have to belong to an assurance scheme, as well as the environmental organisation LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming).

Taylor said it had to be accepted that supermarkets would continue to have their own quality schemes, but because Assured Produce was accepted by almost all of them, it was regarded as being “set for purpose, in just the same way as the Little Red Tractor logo”.

At the meeting, held at Castle Farm, East Farleigh, near Maidstone, it was pointed out that benchmarking English-grown top fruit against GlobalGAP was irrelevant, because UK top fruit was not exported.

Taylor added that general harmonisation of produce standards was edging closer, but he said that every move closer also saw several steps backwards. He said there would be some “dumbing down” of standards as countries came into line with each other. “The question has to be asked, on fruit generally, whether GlobalGAP is audited in Australia or Japan, for example - quite clearly, it isn’t,” he added. “But now is an ideal time to look back over the core values of production management.”

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