Red Tractor has confirmed it will not be launching the Greener Farms Commitment (GFC) module following feedback from members. Prior to the announcement, the NFU and AHDB had publicly called for the green module to be scrapped. In a joint statement, UK Farming Unions and AHDB said the “Greener Farms Commitment will be unable to command any level of support no matter what consultation is put in place. Resumption of work on the Greener Farms Commitment module would be extremely damaging to Red Tractor’s reputation.”
Christine Tacon, Chair of Red Tractor said that while the module had been developed with the best of intentions, she admitted that mistakes had been made: “We take responsibility for those issues and are sorry. We hope that by dropping the module, we can close the door on this chapter and move forward. We will only be involved in future environmental standards when all constituencies across the UK food and farming chain, by sector, ask us to and with full consultation.”
Since announcing plans last year, the proposed Red Tractor environmental module has been met with intense criticism. Although the module was described as voluntary, fears that it would eventually evolve into a market access requirement have been widespread. Farmers felt both sceptical and angered that they would be paying the price for implementing sustainability measures on behalf of supermarkets, with no financial benefit in return. In a world where expectation and pressure on the food supply chain to demonstrate environmental credentials continues to increase, Red Tractor believed it would be aiding farmers by providing a single consistent industry approach.
Plans were initially put on hold back in November, pending a review into the organisation’s governance. It was later announced that the NFU had commissioned two critical reviews – one into the governance of Red Tractor and the other into the future of farm assurance. Findings from the first review, carried out by Campbell Tickell were published in February and concluded that the governance of Red Tractor is ‘sound’ and there was no procedural breach identified. Amongst other observations, the report acknowledged that Red Tractor would need to work with stakeholders to re-build trust.
The NFU and AHDB have since detailed plans for their next step, which is a much wider, independent review into farm to fork assurance overseen by all four of the main UK farming unions – the AHDB, NFU, NFU Cymru, NFU Scotland and the Ulster Farmers’ Union.
