Antibiotics fears prove that Red Tractor still has big role to play

THERE MUST be no let-up in the pursuit of maintaining and improving high husbandry standards on British farms despite the repair of the industry’s image since the turn of the millennium, the outgoing leader of Britain’s largest farm assurance scheme has warned.

In the second part of an exclusive wide-ranging interview with

before his retirement this month, the chief executive of Red Tractor David Clarke said the mission he started 19 years ago had achieved its original goal, but that current fears about a growing resistance to antibiotics meant the scheme still had an important safeguarding role to play for years to come.

Globally, a reliance on antibiotics is threatening their use as effective medicines for the treatment of common infectious diseases. Micro-organisms, familiar with the medicines, are evolving into so-called “superbugs” and if the prevalence of antibiotics use is not checked, then they risk being rendered ineffective.

The World Health Organisation is leading a concerted attempt to promote best practice in the administering of the medicines, including optimal use of antibiotics in both humans and animals.

Seeking to play its part in reducing the use of antibiotics on British farms, Red Tractor is taking advice from RUMA, the alliance for Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture, which is co-ordinating action against antimicrobial resistance within the UK’s food supply chain.

Looking back at how far Red Tractor and the farming industry had come, Mr Clarke said: “I think Red Tractor Farm Assurance was set up as a crisis-management measure in the late 1990s when everything was being thrown at us, and then right the way through to 2001 foot and mouth disease. The reputation of the industry was pretty low. What I hoped to achieve was to restore confidence and I think we have done that.

“We have come a good way, particularly with animal welfare. It’s difficult to say that without saying they weren’t very good in the first place and I wouldn’t want anyone to take that inference. We started from a strong base and have become even stronger.

“But if anyone thinks ‘job done, we can stop now’, then you only have to look back at the horsemeat scandal four years ago and to current challenges around things like anti-microbial resistance. We still need to be on our toes and I think we have a mechanism that does that.”

Launched in 2000, a key part of the scheme is the Red Tractor logo, which was established in the wake of the food scares to reassure consumers over the reliability and safety of British food.

The logo remains a prominent feature on the supermarket shelves today and is a guarantee that the food product carrying the label has been produced entirely on British farms and to strict welfare and husbandry standards that are the subject of inspections. More than £14bn of food carried the Red Tractor logo last year.

Mr Clarke said the quality of the work in maintaining standards could be demonstrated by the response from the Government, which has seen Red Tractor farmers inspected “significantly less” by inspectors. The scheme now boasts more than 60,000 farm businesses as members. Red Tractor’s chairman Jim Moseley is set to replace Mr Clarke as chief executive. KNARESBOROUGH: