Farm assured

[SteveM]

Farm assured, are the benefits worth the cost.

Appears we now need to be farm assured for the local abattoir to even consider taking any cull animals. or sell at market for someone who is keep them till they qualify on there farm.

Anyone any advice as to the hickups in signing up?

[Rob R]

Farm assured, are the benefits worth the cost.

It's been many years since we were farm assured but when we were I was very unimpressed by it and felt that I was just funding a protection racket, given that the changes required were more paperwork than practise, and there was no physical benefit to it, other than opening up markets, as you say. Knowing some of the local farms that have it only confirms my suspicions in my mind.

It's a fixed cost, so it's only ever going to pay the more animals you have to spread it over. If you've only got one outlet for the culls I'd look up what it will cost and divide that by the number of animals you send. If that's less than the drop in value you might expect at market plus your own time, it's got to be worth doing, although either way you lose.

[Boofarm]

Farm assured, are the benefits worth the cost.

Appears we now need to be farm assured for the local abattoir to even consider taking any cull animals. or sell at market for someone who is keep them till they qualify on there farm.

Anyone any advice as to the hickups in signing up?

Its a load of old tosh but no major hiccups in signing up - just make sure your paperwork is in order and that you are at least trying to do what you should be doing anyway, ours were keen on health plan etc but no hassle.

Cheers
mac

[davidw]

I visit quite a number of "Farm Assured" farms in my work of investigating accidents and incidents. I can say that the vast majority of them do not meet the required standard.
I visited one memorable farm earlier this year that was not only Farm Assured, it was a Home Office Licensed research farm. Frankly I was appalled by the state of the place. I cannot imagine how it obtained and kept its Assurance status.