The chief executive of Bord Bia Jim O’Toole has said that work is ongoing to try to “streamline” the process for farm audits.
Addressing, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) Annual General Meeting (AGM) yesterday (Monday, December 2), O’Toole said that “every business in some shape or form has to go through an audit”.
61,000 farmers are part of the range of Bord Bia Sustainable Quality Assurance (QA) Schemes, including dairy, beef and lamb.
O’Toole said that 43,000 audits are conducted by Bord Bia every year, while 375,000 carbon assessments have been completed on Irish farms.
“The people that are buying our food want to be able to see evidence of compliance and they want a way to be able to do that easily and with confidence.
“I appreciate that nobody welcomes doing an audit but it is something that allows us to share and demonstrate the good work that you are doing on your farm and to be able to put it in a way that stands up to scrutiny by people who we are trying to sell to,” O’Toole said.
Farm audits
One farmer told the meeting that there is “too much emphasis on numbers and figures and not enough of emphasis on what is happening inside the farmgate”.
He added that farmers are “getting fed up” with duplication across farm schemes.
“We can hardly go to the loo now without ringing somebody up and asking them is it ok to do that,” he said.
Several farmers commented on the behaviour of some Bord Bia auditors when visiting farms and the anxiety and stress caused to farmers.
“For some strange reason, over the last couple of years it’s felt like I’ve the fear of God in me with this auditor coming out. I’ve three weeks of stuff to do beforehand and probably three weeks after. It’s becoming very cumbersome and overloaded with paperwork,” one farmer said.
Another farmer said that instead of trying to find what is wrong on a farm, auditors should instead focus on identifying positives.
O’Toole said that Bord Bia monitors the performance of its auditors “very closely”, adding that he would be “very interested to hear” any issues farmers experienced with auditors.
He said the “overwhelming majority” of auditors are also farmers themselves.
“It is not good auditing practice to put ‘the fear of God’ into anybody and we’d certainly look at that,” he said.
A recent survey of over 12,000 farmers who underwent an audit found that 97% of respondents said that auditors were courteous and clear with feedback.
The meeting heard that 75,000 calls were received by the Bord Bia helpdesk with a large amount of those calls helping farmers having difficulty uploading their “close out” data.
O’Toole highlighted that mental health is part of the training given to auditors who can witness the anguish of farmers firsthand.
“Auditors have a job to do in terms that they have to be objective and fair-minded, but they also are also people who sadly on a number of occasions have gone into farms where farmers are in crisis and only for the auditors those farmers wouldn’t be helped,” he said.
The Bord Bia chief executive said that as part of the ongoing revision of the producer standard they will “try to make the audit as straightforward and as streamlined as possible”.
“It won’t be without some degree of difficulty, but anywhere we can streamline it we’re perfectly happy to do that,” he said.
Bord Bia
O’Toole told the ICMSA AGM that one of the biggest benefits of the Quality Assurance (QA) standard is providing a “level of reassurance” to consumers when they are buying food.
He noted that 55% of the Irish public have no connection with farming and opportunities to build trust with the sector come through being transparent, accountable and proactive.
90% of all Irish food and drink exports are covered under the Origin Green programme.
O’Toole said that the information gathered through the programmes allows Bord Bia to present “proof points” to customers around the world on issues such as emissions reduction.
The data will also be used to comply with the EU Green Claims directive which is due to come into force.
“This is not being done by our competitors at the scale and the pace that it is being done here and that is what helps us to win markets overseas. We have a great story to tell about our grass-based production,” he said.
There was a 15% average reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) per unit of beef from Sustainable Beef and Lamb Assurance Scheme (SBLAS) members between 2014-2023.
For farmers in the Sustainable Dairy Assurance Scheme (SDAS) the average CO2 reduction per litre of milk stands at 14% over that period.