Food chain ‘partnership’ lacks equality

THE Co-op, I see, has started to take a very close interest in farming, specifically as carried on by those producers who supply it.

To the extent that it is now demanding details of all the inputs that are used in the production of the foodstuffs it buys and retails.

I have no idea what kind of yardstick it intends applying: which inputs it will deem acceptable and which not.

But what I do know is that once the up-and-coming Co-op starts scrutinising farms to this extent, the rest of the supermarket sector will soon be following its example like a pack of baying hounds.

At which point farmers – who for the last nine years have been repeatedly promised a reduction in the excessive burden of inspection and checking – will find themselves lumbered with even more onerous obligations to prove that what they are growing or raising isn’t going to result in the nation being exterminated.

If we had anything like a decent farming organisation in this country the alarm bells would already be ringing and the public would be made aware of what a nonsensical idea this is.

But since we haven’t got such an organisation then we should, as individuals, be taking this matter up with Christine Tacon, the so-called Groceries Code Adjudicator, who as far as I can see does little if anything to justify her very generous salary.

We should be making the case that since we are supposed to be ‘partners’ in the food chain with the retailers then we should have a right to exercise the same level of scrutiny over their activities.

That should extend to having access to their accounts to find out quite how much they are marking up the produce for which they pay farmers such ludicrously low prices. Crucially, it should also enable us to verify the origin and production standards of fruit and vegetables sold under the label of the many fantasy farms the retailers have created in order to give bog-standard goods a spurious provenance, thus enabling them to ease up the retail price by a few pence.

If retailers are to be allowed to examine farming systems in such minute detail, then the same facility should be extended to farmers when it comes to their activities. We should be inquiring into such things as pay and conditions of staff and how limited-hour contracts are used to reduce sick and holiday pay obligations.

I imagine there are all sorts of murky corners to be explored in the supermarket sector. I imagine, equally, that any attempt at exploration would be robustly opposed, probably on the all-purpose ground of commercial confidentiality.

Farmers, on the other hand, will have no option but to comply with the Co-op’s demands if they wish to remain listed as suppliers. As always, the idea of food chain ‘partnership’ lacks the vital adjective ‘equal’.