UK Farm Assurance Review

Find out about the Farm Assurance Review (FAR), why it was needed, its recommendations and what the next steps are. 

The FAR came about following growing concern from some of our levy payers over how farm assurance schemes operate and the value they deliver. 

Farm assurance in the UK developed in the 1990s to provide consumers with confidence that food and feed is safe, traceable and of a defined standard. 

Products branded with assurance marks are now seen by some consumers as a sign of quality, and our research found that assurance logos and welfare messaging can increase purchase intent and improve the public’s perception of products. 

However, farmers have in recent years voiced concerns over: 

• The scope and purpose of some assurance schemes 

• A sense of powerlessness in the face of regular raising of standards without clear additional value being returned to them 

• The relationship between assurance standards and legislation 

• Inefficiencies in the audit process 

• The production standards of imported food compared to domestic standards 

In response to these and other concerns, AHDB and the national farming unions (NFUs) commissioned the independent FAR, and submitted evidence to the commissioners who led the review. 

Where we are now 

Published in January 2025, the FAR report concluded that farm assurance is critical to the industry’s future and is delivering necessary assurances on quality to consumers, but it must make some fundamental changes to address growing frustration among farmers in how it is delivered. 

The review makes nine strategic recommendations. These include: 

• The need for on-farm audits to be reduced, simplified and delivered more consistently 

• A transformational step forward in embracing technology 

• Establishing farmers as the driving voice in standards development 

• Setting out the environmental ambitions of farm assurance 

• Government agreeing a form of ‘earned recognition’ 

• Greater collaboration between farm assurance schemes across the UK 

• Better positioning of UK farming in world food markets and in competition with imported food 

What happens next 

Along with the above strategic recommendations, the FAR report makes 56 practical recommendations, of which the report’s authors have asked AHDB to help deliver 14. 

We are working collaboratively with the NFUs, farm assurance schemes and other stakeholders to co-develop action plans to ensure their delivery. 

This includes: 

• Working with the NFU and farm assurance schemes to agree a statement which will clarify the purpose and scope of farm assurance in the UK 

• Developing a Farm Data Exchange proof of concept, with the intention that this will lead to a tool that will enable farmers to be in control of their data and that it could be utilised efficiently for farm assurance if farmers wanted, and other purposes of their choosing   

• Clarifying environmental legislative requirements by sector, and working collaboratively on standards through our environmental baselining project 

• Commissioning international standard comparison studies to improve the clarity of imported food production standards 

We will keep FAR monitoring and reporting commissioner David Llewelyn updated on progress and look forward to the publication of his first progress report in the autumn.