UK top-fruit growers have been urged to “stop moaning and be constructive” as the row over the make-up of the Assured Produce (AP) audit continues to rile growers and auditors alike.
A new version of the AP audit came out this month following a line-by-line critique of the current system, which will last until 2011 when it no longer has to be tied to GlobalGAP, by the British Independent Fruit Growers’ Association (BIFGA).
BIFGA members formed the Rolling Back Farm Assurance Schemes Focus Group in the hope of reducing red tape for growers - however, the AP scheme has continued to rile many with “irrelevant” questions.
At a meeting following BIFGA’s spring farm walk at Hadlow Place Farm in Kent, Assured Produce chairman Professor Mark Tatchell faced a hostile audience in defending the scheme.
He said: “We audit against 50 different crops including arable farming and top fruit is just one of these. The cost of running such a scheme is very expensive and to individually tailor the audits for specific crops would be extremely difficult.
“These new standards will be in place for 18 months and if you can be specific about what changes you would like to see then we can work with them. General moaning is of no use and we do need specific comments.”
The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) was represented at the meeting by vice-chairman of the horticulture board Gary Taylor, who has been appointed by AP to address growers’ concerns about harmonisation. He said an advice pack on the audit is to be released “imminently”.
BIFGA chairman John Breach said the process needed to be streamlined as supermarkets were using schemes as branding exercises rather than looking at the multiple audits that growers are tasked with. AP, Leaf, British Retail Consortium (BRC) accreditation, Tesco Nature’s Choice, Sedex, Soil Association and Marks & Spencer's Field to Fork were listed among the schemes that various growers had to be audited on simultaneously.
BIFGA vice-chairman Clive Edmed said he had to do five audits without even having a packhouse and called on the NFU to “fight the growers' corner to make sure we don’t get even more standards pushed upon us by the supermarkets”.
Taylor said that if the Rolling Back Farm Assurance Schemes group forced elements to be removed from the AP audit then they may have to be put back into other audits, such as Sedex.
One speaker from the floor said: “It is very logical to have just one scheme, but it is also very obvious that the supermarkets would want their own. The problem is we are weak as an industry and unless we have a body to represent us that is strong then complaining is just hot air.”
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