Privacy Policy

Our contact details

Ceres Rural LLP
Council Offices
London Road
Saffron Walden
CB11 4ER

01223 679 679
contact@ceresrural.co.uk

The type of personal information we collect

We currently collect and process the following information:

• Contact information such as your name, postal address, phone number, and email address
• Details of the type of rural business you are part of
• Details of your marketing preferences
• When and where you heard about Ceres Rural LLP
• If applicable, details of the services we provide(d) for you and projects we support(ed), your billing information and payment history
• If applicable, specific details relating to your interest in a particular service, for example your SBI number, your farm’s acreage, the nature of your rural business or rural business project.
• If applicable, details of your browsing behaviour via cookies.

Without providing us with this information, you will still be able to use our website to view our services and blogs, and learn more about Ceres Rural. However, without some of this information you will be unable to make an enquiry via our website. This information is required so that we can communicate with you appropriately, tailor our response to your business’ requirements, and/or provide you with our services.

How we obtain personal information and why we have it

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons:

• To provide you with our independent advice and services, tailoring unique solutions in line with your rural business’ specific requirements and means.
• To share our expert advice on key issues and opportunities in the rural industry, for example via our blog or newsletter.
• To invite you to events hosted by ourselves and/or our associates, which we deem would be relevant to you.
• To tell you about Ceres Rural’s business, work and upcoming projects.
• To act as a liaison between your rural business and a third party organisation (for example the Rural Payments Agency or Defra), in order to provide you with access to further information, grants and funding, and/or combined services.

We also receive personal information indirectly, from the following sources in the following scenarios:

• Another consultancy or organisation, which cannot provide a service to you themselves and therefore recommends and includes us in a conversation with you about your project.
• A peer from the rural community or otherwise who recommends our services to you by making an introduction via email or other communication, which results in the sharing of your information.
• A governmental or charitable organisation that requests our expert advice with regards to an application, dispute or other relevant liaison.
• A legal entity or member of the legal community who request/instructs our involvement in a case as an expert witness.
• An investor or purchaser involved with the investment in, or sale of, a client’s property(s), asset(s) or product(s).

We use the information we have to communicate with you appropriately and be able to provide our services.

We may share this information with other organisations, including the Rural Payments Agency, Defra, Forestry Commission, Natural England, the Agricultural Horticultural and Development Board, and Andersons, in order to perform the required actions associated with completion of your project and fulfilling our service.

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:

How we store your personal information

Your information is securely stored.

• We keep your contact and business information, marketing preferences, contact origin and history, unless you request for your information to be deleted, or removed from our records. If there is no legitimate or legal reason for it to be kept, your information will be removed from our database software.
• We keep details of the services we provide(d) for you and projects we support(ed), your billing information and payment history on our secure digital system. In some cases, details of the work we carried out for you, including any associated documents, applications, or other communications, are kept in hard copy at a secure location. If requested, these records can be securely destroyed by shredding or fire, unless there is legitimate or legal reason for us to keep them.

Partnership Advertising and Meta Platforms

From time to time, Ceres Rural LLP may work with third-party advertising partners, such as Meta Platforms Inc. (Facebook and Instagram), to deliver advertising that is relevant to our clients and to measure the effectiveness of our marketing activities. This may include running partnership ads, where we collaborate with another business or organisation to jointly promote our services, events, or initiatives.

Where you have opted in to receive marketing communications from us, we may use your personal data to tailor and deliver advertising through these platforms. To enable these activities, we may share limited personal data (such as your name, email address, or phone number) or website interaction data with Meta and other advertising partners in a hashed or pseudonymised form. This allows us to:

• Match our client or contact data with Meta users for targeted advertising (for example, through Meta Custom Audiences);
• Assess and improve the performance of our marketing campaigns; and
• Reduce repetitive advertising and ensure that content shown to you is more relevant to your interests.

Meta acts as a joint controller with Ceres Rural for certain processing activities related to ad delivery and measurement. Further details of how Meta processes personal data, including information on your rights, are available in Meta’s Privacy Policy.

We rely on your consent (where required under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations – PECR) and/or our legitimate interests in promoting and growing our business to carry out these activities. You may withdraw your consent or object to this processing at any time by:

• Adjusting your cookie preferences on our website;
• Changing your advertising settings within your Meta account; or
• Contacting us using the details provided in this Privacy Policy.

Our website also uses cookies and similar technologies, such as the Meta Pixel, to help us understand how visitors interact with our site and to link website visits with our Meta advertising campaigns. For more information, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

Where we run partnership advertising jointly with another organisation (for example, an event co-host or commercial partner), both parties may act as joint controllers for the personal data used in those campaigns. Each organisation is responsible for providing clear information about how your data is used and for enabling you to exercise your rights under UK GDPR. You may contact either party to exercise those rights.

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to object to processing – You have the the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we will aim to respond to you as soon as possible, but any request for personal information may take between one – three months, depending on the nature and complexity of the request.

Please contact us at contact@ceresrural.co.uk if you wish to make a request.

Changes and updates to this privacy policy

Ceres Rural will review this policy at regular intervals and reserves the right to update or amend it at any time.  It is intended that this policy is fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation at the time of writing. However, if any conflict arises between the data protection legislation and this policy, the company will comply with the data protection legislation.

How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at contact@ceresrural.co.uk.

You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with our response, or how we have used your data.