A Brexit of any outcome will result in a break from the subsidiary and regulatory Common Agricultural Policy. This will give the British government the opportunity to take farming regulation into their own hands, but many are concerned that new trade deals will put British farms at risk. EU subsidies currently account for 50 to 60 percent of UK farm income and while the government has pledged to match the £3.5 billion a year going to farms until 2020, what will happen after that remains unclear.
Farmers have also expressed concern following Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit briefing last month about the potential damage to their business from leaving the EU free market, as well as the threat of cheap foreign imports due to May’s push for international trade deals. According to Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, farmers are facing the “perfect storm, losing tariff-free access to vital European markets while being undercut by imports from the US and elsewhere” where he claims there are “lower animal welfare and food standards”.
The imposure of potential tariffs in excess of 30 percent for access to the EU market are particularly worrying for British sheep and dairy farmers who currently export 90 and 80 percent of their produce respectively to the EU, according to the Commons Environmental Audit Committee. The National Sheep Association has publically expressed concerns that the Government was taking away the sheep industry’s biggest export market “with no clear plan for how to replace it”.
NFU Cymru and the Farmers’ Union of Wales agreed that with 30 percent of lamb currently being exported to Europe, “unfettered access” to the market would be crucial for the sector to survive. Concerns have also been raised about access to the seasonal European migrant workers that UK farmers currently rely on. The referendum and recently weakened pound have already seen the source of workers begin to dry up and many are worried that the trend is set to continue unless the government implements a scheme to encourage workers from countries outside the EU, like Ukraine.
Used to weathering hard times, most British farmers appear to be stoic in the face of a bleak future. However, some see an opportunity for Britain to take back control of its farming regulations, shorten ever-lengthening supply chains and to give vital support to new and small-scale farmers. “For too long, a bureaucratic system which tries to meet the needs of 28 countries has held farmers back,” said Enviroment, Food and Rural Affairs secretary Andrea Leadsom. “But now, leaving the EU means we can focus on what works best for the United Kingdom.”
The Brexit negotiations present a crossroads for the British farming industry, a turn outwards in favour of importing cheaper food produce from trade deals struck with large scale farming countries, at the risk of undercutting British farms, or a turn inwards, using the reduction in EU restrictions to promote homegrown produce and millennial farmers, at the risk of higher prices in store.
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