Tech push aims to cut farm assurance paperwork and audit burden

UK farm assurance is under pressure to change, with industry leaders backing technology as a way to cut paperwork and ease the burden on farmers.

Speaking at the Oxford Farming Conference this month, senior figures from assurance schemes, farming and agribusiness said smarter use of data could reduce duplication, shorten audits and build confidence across the supply chain.

The discussion came a year after the UK Farm Assurance Review, commissioned by AHDB and the NFU, which called for a step change in how technology, data and collaboration are used.

Providing a farmer’s perspective, Oxfordshire dairy and beef farmer David Christensen said assurance remains vital to UK food credibility, but its delivery has become exhausting.

“These schemes are hugely important. They’re not universally popular sometimes with farmers, but we’ve got really good food credibility in the UK, and we need something standing behind that to justify the standards and justify the claims.”

He said the real strain comes from administration rather than farming itself. “The most exhausting part of farming today is not the farming, it’s the paperwork,” he said.

Mr Christensen pointed to duplication across schemes as a key frustration, while welcoming recent moves to combine inspections.

“Hats off to Tesco and Red Tractor for getting that together, because so much of it was overlapping, it was bonkers,” he said.

Map of Ag director Rob Burgess said the Farm Assurance Review was designed to examine the entire system and identify how it could work better for all involved.

“The aim of the review was to look at the whole farm assurance process, see how it delivers value to the different stakeholders such as farmers and supply chain consumers, and effectively make recommendations for how it could be improved going forwards,” he said.

Red Tractor said it is already acting on the review’s findings by developing technology-enabled solutions to cut duplication and reduce audit pressure across its scheme, which covers more than 40,000 farms.

Philippa Wiltshire, Red Tractor’s director of standards and operations, said upgrades to the members’ portal are intended to help farmers manage assurance requirements year-round.

“We’re upgrading the Red Tractor Members Portal to make it an easier and more efficient way to stay on top of paperwork,” she said.

She said the changes should also reduce time spent with inspectors on farm.

“Using the portal means assessors will be able to spend less time during a farm visit looking at paperwork, reducing the length of their visit,” she said.

Ms Wiltshire said collaboration with the Tesco Sustainable Dairy Group has already reduced audit duplication for dairy farmers.

“Before, these farmers were having additional audits and separate inspectors,” she said.

“By working in partnership with Tesco, we were able to offer farmers the ability to be able to use our portal, to be able to upload records that they needed to for that customer, all very secure.”

She stressed that farmers must remain in control of their information. “The data is the farmer’s data, and the farmer needs control over that data all the time,” she said.

Looking ahead, Mr Christensen said the next step must be automation, rather than repeated manual data entry.

“There’s a mass of data already there in systems like BCMS, herd management software, robots and milk recording that could be picked up automatically,” he said.

He also called for greater alignment between schemes. “It drives me mad when I’m having to assess animals with a different scale for different organisations,” he said.

He added that assurance could deliver more value if data was used for benchmarking as well as compliance.

“There’s a real opportunity for looking at the data to do some benchmarking and comparing how I’m getting on,” he said.

Phil Pearson, development director at APS Group, said robotics, precision breeding and automated data collection are already helping streamline audits and compliance in the fresh produce sector.

However, speakers agreed that technology alone will not solve the challenge, with collaboration across farmers, certification bodies, retailers and policymakers seen as essential.

Ms Wiltshire said the industry needs to think beyond short-term fixes. “We’ve got to think outside the box as an industry,” she said.

“Don’t just think about what we could change in the next 18 months. What do we want it to look like in five years’ time, or 10 years’ time? This is about continuous change.”