Farm assurance
Farm assurance schemes were developed by the food industry in response to consumer concerns about food safety and animal welfare standards. The Red Tractor logo was launched in June 2000 and is independently managed by Assured Food Standards (AFS) under strict licensing conditions.
Buyers wishing to use the red tractor symbol look for farm assured suppliers. Some buyers request farm assurance in addition to organic certification, which is why we have developed our own Soil Association farm assurance scheme (SAFA)
To help meet all your certification requirements, we offer a full range of industry and Assured Food Standards' approved schemes which are operated to the European standard EN45011:
- SAFA Soil Association Farm Assurance Cattle And Sheep
- SAFA Soil Association Farm Assurance Cereals
- FAWL Farm Assured Welsh Livestock
- QMS Quality Meat Scotland
- ADF National Dairy Farm Assurance
Farm assurance inspections can take place at the same time as your organic inspection and by the same inspector, saving you time, duplication and paperwork. Urgent inspections can be arranged on request.
To keep your customers updated with your farm assurance status, all SAFA members are registered the member checker, an online service for farm assurance members and buyers. We can send your certificates to buyers on your request.
To find out more on farm assurance schemes or any of our additional certification services available to Soil Association licensees, please contact us on 0117 914 2406 or email goorganic@soilassociation.org
Changes to Soil Association farm assurance - 2010
You may have already read in the agricultural trades press that Assured Food Standards (AFS), owners of the Red Tractor logo and associated farm assurance schemes, have undertaken a harmonisation process. As part of this process, we have considered it in the best interests of our assurance members to adopt the AFS Red Tractor scheme standards for our beef & lamb and cereals schemes. This will ensure that the SAFA-AFS schemes will be accepted for all market outlets that require farm assurance certification and whose products ultimately end up as Red Tractor-labelled products. This will also give our members access to technical publications and newsletters issued from time to time by AFS.
Our inspectors are inspecting to the new standards from 1 April 2010.
Download them here:
We believe that at farm level, the change over to the new AFS harmonised standards will have very little impact to our organic farmers, as many of the new standards are either only applicable to farms where agrochemicals are used, or are already statutory requirements. Our previous assurance standards were already benchmarked against the Red Tractor scheme standards.
We are sure that your membership of SAFA will meet the same high standards that you have come to expect from the Soil Association organic certification scheme. If you have any questions about the changes or operation of SAFA, please feel free to contact the SAFA manager:
E:
prod.cert@soilassociation.org
T: 0117 914 2412
For further information on harmonisation of product sectors, please refer to the following newsletters issued by Assured Food Standards
certification_abm_newsletter_2010-01[PDF]
certification_acc_newsletter_2010-01PDF]