More could be done to reduce dairy inspections - NFU

NFU Cymru has described the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) consultation on the proposal to reduce the frequency of official inspections on Welsh dairy farms as a positive step in the right direction but that more could be achieved.

Newly elected Chairman of NFU Cymru Dairy Board, Maurice Jones, said, "NFU Cymru has been working with Animal Health Dairy Hygiene (AHDH), Defra, WAG and Assured Dairy Farms (ADF) for a number of years now to reduce the inspection burden on dairy farms through recognition of assured farm status as an indicator of low risk. Given this long standing work NFU Cymru believes the proposals in their current format do not go far enough in recognising the low food safety risk status of British dairy farms."

At present Welsh dairy farmers are inspected officially by AHDH on behalf of the FSA and as a member of ADF over 95% of producers are inspected again for farm assurance purposes.

Maurice Jones added, "There is a large amount of duplication of inspection in the dairy sector with milk processors, retailers, trading standard and Animal Health all running their own inspection regimes and for a number of years NFU Cymru has called on the FSA to reduce the inspection burden on dairy farms.

"One method proposed to combat this would be through recognition of assured farm status as an indicator of low risk, but at the moment FSA proposals only regard AHDH categories 4 and 3 as low enough risk for inclusion. NFU Cymru would maintain that the majority of British dairy farms are not high risk and that these figures are unrepresentative."

"Instead NFU Cymru proposes that all farmers who belong to farm assurance schemes should see real benefits in reduced regulatory costs and inspections. Assurance schemes under the Red Tractor logo have been established to provide food of high quality, whilst maintaining good welfare standards and environmental protection. Farmers participating in these schemes are already complying with standards that exceed the legal minimum and their compliance is monitored by independent inspections.

"Farms that are members of farm assurance schemes represent a lower risk than those that are not, and that should be reflected in the frequency in which they are inspected."