ANDREW Little and Livestock Integrity Solutions Australasia have been appointed as the third-party auditors for the Australian Certified Humane cattle welfare standards.
Alisdair Robertson (left), the founder of the Australian Certified Humane certification program, said David Inderias and the Fresh Supply Co team, has also been contracted to capture all ACH supply chain data to the Mastercard Provenance blockchain, ensuring that consumers get the independent third-party audited grassfed, ACH product they pay for.
“All this will serve to strengthen the Australian Certified Humane standard,” he said.
Mr Robertson has worked through the supply chain as a cattle producer, butcher, beef retailer, restaurateur and wholesaler.
He launched the Australian Certified Humane program in 2016 after finding it difficult in his wholesale business Butcher’s Nook to secure a consistent supply of grassfed beef underpinned by an independent certified animal welfare standard.
His program aims to develop a network of certified producers who comply with Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Cattle and a range of additional conditions related to polled genetics, pain relief, water infrastructure and drought management strategies (see earlier article here)
Mr Robertson said the program’s certification process has now been taken to a higher level with the appointment of Livestock Integrity Solutions Australasia as independent, third-party auditors for the Australian Certified Humane beef welfare and Standing Grass, Legume and Pasture certified standards.
He said the ACH certification quickly and easily offers consumers the information they are looking for in the supermarket aisle and allows them to make purchasing decisions with confidence.
“ACH enables them to immediately access verifiable details of the animal’s life, and confirm where the animal was born, grass-fed and humanely raised in Australia,” he said.
He said the program is soon to embark on a marketing campaign to drive interest in ACH certification with Australian producers and also to educate consumers and retailers about the program.
The aim is to have 200 ACH accredited cattle producers audited by the end of 2021, recognising the disruptions currently being caused by the COVID-19 crisis.
He said the program has also engaged and licensed a handful of well known, large scale domestic end users and is also discussions with international supermarket chains.
An end-user audit through Fresh Supply Co and Mastercard Provenance blockchain has also been developed to prevent substitution of certified ACH product.
“We also plan to develop third party auditable welfare standards for other animals; starting with sheep. The ACH accreditation system is equally applicable to any animal protein and can benefit their agricultural traceability supply chains.
“By the end of 2020, we plan to have compiled a set of third party auditable rules for lamb and wool production and to have begun marketing the scheme to sheep producers.”
The major problem all these certification programs face, including the major one LPA, is that it is not enforceable on vast extensive properties. Intensive industries like feedlots, piggeries, chickens and so on where the business is from tens to hundreds of hectares that can be walked all over in an hour is totally different where the business involved is more often then not, hundreds to millions of hectares. An auditor simply cannot correctly audit properties of that size and thus the entire scheme is worthless. They simply do not have the time nor the ability to confirm what is written down, is happening.
I have seen enough to believe all these schemes do is dupe consumers into a false sense of belief. They rely solely on the reputation that most Australian graziers already do the right thing to the best of their abilities without any need for any certification. If this scheme was on imported meat from China how many consumers would believe it?
I’m not Chinese and we are not in China,
But this is a first for Australia, and This is a simple Standard with a handful of significant questions that Consumers want answered, and the producers who I want to be involved want to answer them,
It’s not about telling lies, or auditors with their slippers under the desk.
Alisdair Robertson
Good work Alisdair. It’s been a long slog but you got there. All the very best with your venture
It would be great to see this expanded to goats as well
Sounds a bit like passing the buck at producers cost to me
The last thing we need at the moment
Mike Teelow ,
Could you explain what buck is getting passed,?
It’s an Independent 3rd party auditable standard, it’s not Mandatory, ?