Speaking to an ex-NFU president some time ago about how farmers could cope with the post CAP regime with dwindling financial support I asked him what could be done: A one word answer 'deregulation'.

"If we are going to compete with lower standards then deregulation our only hope". This set me thinking about what current costly impositions on industry could be dropped. So, here's my go ... third party audits.

"Third party audit is nothing more than a money-making scam which should be confined the dustbins of history. What is required is a strong competent authority audit with appropriate sanctions".

Those were not my words, but those of the great Bill Jolly, chief assurance strategy officer at the Ministry for Primary Industries, in the New Zealand government at the 2018 World Food Congress in Tokyo, 2018.

Remember this is a country that depends almost solely on exports and as such must satisfy the demand of its export customers and which it does so without third party audit, whilst we over here hamstring our farmers and processors with endless audits but individuals of sometimes questionable ability.

Larger processors often endure countless audits every week, running into hundreds of thousands of pounds annually, and for what? Certainly, the oft-quoted Elysium Fields of ‘earned autonomy’ seems nothing more than a mirage.

Is there a better way? Well, yes there is.

Over the last few years, I and other industry colleagues have been patiently working on the Livestock Information Programme with Defra and AHDB, which is now delivering sheep movement traceability and hopefully cattle movements will be added in the next year or so. In disease control terms, this system should deliver the assurance the CVO needs to accelerate relaxation of some controls like the six-day rule amongst others.

Separately, Defra launched the Animal Health Pathway initiative which consists of a Defra-funded veterinary farm audit which is extensive in its content and comes with the seal of being carried out by the competent authority which sets it miles apart from the third-party audit system in terms of international trade credibility.

Furthermore, when I spoke to the NZ attaché here in the UK about what was happening, his response was: "This is what we are aspiring to in NZ." When was the last time we could be thought of as miles ahead of the pack?

To summarise: Livestock Information, plus competent authority farm audit and there's your basic assurance. Any other customer-required bolt on is purely commercial.

The third-party audit industry, for that is what it is, will squeal blue murder but it has leached fortunes out of the industry for far too long and yet failed to stem the welfare exposes which is why retailers are resorting to their own processor platforms in protecting themselves from bad publicity and why shouldn't they.

What's not to like?