It is important to stress that on a lot of farms the same person will be responsible for all these activities and therefore a Site Contact only needs to be provided where the responsibilities are split. this is more likely to be in integrated businesses within the Poultry, Pig and Fresh Produce sectors.
At your next renewal, your certification body will request that you identify the individuals. For many farms, these two roles will be filled by the same person, but where it is not, the distinction is important for clarity.
Clauses 18 and 19 clarify when a farm needs to have separate memberships and how additional farm holdings should be registered with certification bodies. For dairy and dairy goat farms, the rules are now clearer that a separate membership is required for each milking premises. For poultry farms, a separate membership is necessary for each self-contained live poultry site, with specific criteria regarding stock management, operational control, and biosecurity. For pig farms, the rules now set clear limits on the number and size of additional units that can be registered to a breeding unit membership.
In Clause 29, the rule for membership renewal is also being refined to ensure that it aligns with real-world practices. We make it clear that sites which are temporarily not engaged in farming activities, such as those without livestock or crops, cannot renew their membership *if their assessment is overdue. Instead, these sites will need to reapply as new members once their farming activities resume and undergo a new assessment to regain their assured status.