Scotland’s farmers union has withdrawn its support for digital grain passports and recommended the project being facilitated by the AHDB levy board should not proceed.
The current digital project has been in the pipeline and discussed by industry stakeholders for two years and follows a previous pilot scheme between 2012-2017 which was ultimately not adopted.
NFU Scotland (NFUS) informed the Cereal Liaison Group of its decision ahead of the group’s meeting to vote on whether the passports – which are designed to provide a two-way data flow for all combinable crop supply chains across the UK and provide a universal system of returning weight and quality data back to growers – should proceed to the “build” phase.
Concerns raised over value for money
However, the union said that the cons of the digital system outweighed the pros.
The decision was taken after the union’s combinable crops committee watched a demonstration of the proposed new system prototype and members in all regions discussed the proposal.
NFUS combinable crops committee chairman Willie Thomson said: “While many committee members could see some potential advantages of digital grain passports, there was a concern over value for money, future cost increases, and extension of their scope.
“There was an overall feeling that digitising the passports would make something simple more complex and less accessible, at an unreasonably high cost.”
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