Whre Does Britain Buy Beef From
Regardless of how Brexit pans out, it will be sold as a great success by the politicians who brought it about.
Even if it looks like a disaster, they will find a way to make it look good.
Just like England's recent announcement that it will scrap the EU system of direct payments to farmers over the next six years, which those politicians have branded as "green reform, while the EU stays in hock to farmers".
It remains to be seen if Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland follow suit after English farmers were told their existing system of direct payments will be cut by at least 50% by 2024 and will be gone by 2027.
They must switch to an environmental land management (ELM) system, which UK farm minister George Eustice has said is "the most significant change to farming and land management in 50 years." It will pay farmers for environmentally beneficial actions such as improving soil health; measures to restore nature, like natural flood management; and landscape recovery such as peatland restoration or planting woodland.
Greenpeace UK has praised the British government, which no doubt will continue to promote this as one of the climate actions it can carry out when freed of EU restrictions. Eustice has called the EU's €48 billion-per-year Common Agricultural Policy "actually a bit of a basket case", and the UK will put itself forward as a climate change champion while pointing at protection of the EU's CAP by the farm industry lobby, at the expense of the environment.
The British public will lap this up, their government siding with CAP critics like teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, who has accused the EU of hypocrisy for styling itself as a climate leader while backing an old-school CAP.
However, what the government will gloss over is that England and its ELM plan seems to be moving the UK further away from food self-sufficiency, and more towards dependence on food imports.
The existing direct payments contributed 55% of the average English farm income in 2018/19.
No wonder National Farmers' Union president Minette Batters, said: "Expecting farmers to run viable, high-cost farm businesses, continue to produce food, and increase their environmental delivery while phasing out existing support and without a complete replacement scheme for almost three years, is high risk and a very big ask."
Some farmers will have to diversify outside of agriculture, to earn the ELM payments on offer for 'public goods', such as better air and soil health.
ELM is not expected to completely offset the phased out direct payments, so less money to invest in increasing food production seems the future for English farmers.
Why expand a farm's food production if, without a trade deal, it is forecast that food export volumes out of the UK to its nearest neighbour, the EU, will shrink to almost negligible levels for most commodities?
Even if there is a deal, border controls will return, costing time and money, at least in the first years, which could have serious negative consequences in the case of fresh food produce such as beef, lamb and pork going into Europe.
Everything points to the UK becoming an even bigger net importer of beef and pig meat, being currently only 75%-80% and 60% self-sufficient for these commodities.
In the event of a no-deal Brexit, the British government will therefore point to its freedom, after leaving the EU, to negotiate free trade agreements with major agricultural exporters such as the US, Australia, and New Zealand. But it's a double-edged sword, with the prospect of imports from these competitive exporters further turning away UK farmers from food production.
And trade deals will take years to conclude.
In 2019, the UK was 86% self-sufficient for beef. The major exporter of beef to the UK is Ireland. In 2019, the UK reached 95% self-sufficiency for butter but still imported about six times as much butter as it exported to Ireland.
Sheep meat is one of the few commodities for which the UK is more than 100% self-sufficient. However, it imports legs of lambs, and exports whole or half carcases, and UK production of lamb peaks in the autumn, whereas demand spikes at Easter and Christmas. Without a free trade agreement, UK lamb would not be competitive in the EU. So Brexit poses a major threat to UK sheep farmers.
The UK is far from self-sufficient in pig meat. In 2019, about 60% of the pig meat for consumption in the UK was imported, almost all from the EU.
But it is consumers the UK government is more worried about, and the overall picture for them in January, with or without a trade deal, is higher prices and gaps on the shelves in UK supermarkets, after departure from the EU's single market and customs union leads to supplies of certain foods getting scarce. The UK imports around 45% of its food, with 26% coming from the EU, including nearly all the onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and salad consumed in the UK.
That's why the UK's Food and Drink Federation says a no-deal outcome would be "catastrophic" for UK supply chains.
How could Boris Johnson's government dress that up as progress? It can do so by not levying tariffs on food imports if there is no-deal. The UK government has published tariffs it intends to impose on imported foods, but when it breaks its last links to the EU, on January 1, it is free to revise them.
This is no doubt part of Boris Johnson's back-up plan for a no-deal Brexit, to announce a reprieve for his consumers, and perhaps for his Irish "friends" who supply much of the UK's food.
It would be in fact the only option for a large net food importer. Exempting products like sheep meat would protect UK sheep farmers. There would literally be something for everyone in the audience.
Source: https://www.irishexaminer.com/farming/arid-40187064.html
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