The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: dyedinthewool on January 10, 2012, 08:43:17 pm
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I took two of my lambs to market today and was asked are they farm Assured??
Now I know somewhere I have read something about this but can't remember where...?
What difference would it make if they had of been.?
Anyone know what is involved in becoming Farm Assured?
And lastly I presume there is a 'cost' to become Assured.?
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Farm Assurance (http://v2.mlc.org.uk/sheep/health/assurance.html/?i=)
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Farm Assured means meat from your lambs can be sold with the 'Little Red Tractor' logo on them.
Yes there is a cost, you have to be assessed every year. The cost depends on the number of species you are Assured for, I'm not sure whether it also varies with the number of each you have. We pay between £100 and £200 per annum to be Assured for Lamb and Beef.
If your lambs go to Welsh Country Foods, or other processing plants supplying the supermarkets, you (or whoever sells them deadweight to the processing plant) will probably be docked 10p to 15p per kilo if you are not Farm Assured. Some buyers in the auction ring therefore would pay a little less for non-Assured lambs if they expect the lambs to end up in such a plant.
In theory, being Farm Assured confers confidence on the buyer that the animals in question have been produced to very high standards of food hygiene, animal welfare, etc. In fact, I think there is now very little, ifg anything, in the rules that isn't required of any British producer, whether or not they are Assured. But for sure, anyone who is Farm Assured (or Scotch Assured in Scotland), gets assessed as being compliant in far more detail and far more regularly than a producer who is not Assured.
Hope that helps.
Oh! jaykay just posted a link - hope nothing I wrote is inconsistent with that! :D
Sally