A study commissioned by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has shown that the beef and lamb farm assurance scheme run by Red Tractor, comes out on top when compared against similar schemes offered within Europe.

The report and analysis was produced by Dungannon based Birnie Consultancy, with the findings scrutinised by a panel of experts, including Professor Nigel Scollan from Queen’s University Belfast. It is the second in a four-part series, with the first report published in April 2024, showing that Red Tractor performs strongly when compared against schemes in New Zealand and Australia.

The latest analysis compared Red Tractor with the Sustainable Beef and Lamb Assurance Scheme (SBLAS) run by Bord Bia in the Republic of Ireland, as well as a fairly limited range of farm assurance schemes that exist in mainland Europe. The report authors found schemes in Germany, Poland, France and the Netherlands.

Each were assessed across 14 categories, ranging from animal traceability to vermin control.

When giving an overall percentage score, individual categories were given a weighting, with the highest importance given to how schemes deal with animal traceability and food safety, followed by the likes of animal health and welfare, animal medicines and disease control.

Red Tractor came out on top with an average score across the different categories of over 70%. SBLAS was second, with an average score of over 60% and significantly ahead of any of the schemes from mainland Europe.

The report authors note this “is not unexpected” as these European schemes tend to concentrate on specific areas – for example, the Beter Leven quality mark in the Netherlands is mainly focused on improving animal welfare on farms.

As a result, it out scores Red Tractor in husbandry procedures, while the QS Germany quality scheme had higher scores than Red Tractor in food safety and livestock transport.

“The overall findings from this study show that, when directly compared, Red Tractor achieves higher scores than the majority of the other schemes, across most areas,” notes the Birnie report.

In general, Red Tractor and the SBLAS run by Bord Bia, achieved similar scores across many areas, although the Irish scheme fell well behind in biosecurity and disease control, as well as animal transport. The report authors note that SBLAS does not require farmers to have a quarantine facility in place for newly purchased animals and does not have maximum permitted journey times, or distances, written into scheme requirements.