Nine months after the historic referendum result in June 2016, the Prime Minister has officially notified the European Council of the UK’s intention to withdraw from the European Union. The actual business of negotiating the details of our departure can at last begin.
Sugar will be an important battleground and a microcosm of the wider issues facing agriculture. Not only has sugarbeet been a relatively reliable source of income for 3,500 of Britain’s arable farmers, supporting nearly 10,000 jobs; it is also an important rotational crop that helps soil sustainability and – a point often forgotten – encourages biodiversity. The RSPB notes that UK sugar beet production supports ‘internationally important’ populations of pink-footed geese and ‘nationally important’ populations of stone-curlews.
Given the multi-faceted importance of sugarbeet domestically, future international trading arrangements are very much a top concern for beet growers, and the wider agricultural base. With more than 70% per cent of the UK’s agri-food exports destined for other European states, the EU remains the most important market for our farmers. It is therefore crucial that we retain as free a trading relationship with the EU as possible, both in terms of tariffs and non-tariff barriers.
We should of course recognise the opportunities Brexit presents in forging new trading relationships with countries outside the EU, and many farmers will be excited about the prospect of identifying and developing new markets for their products. Nevertheless, there are clearly risks attached to any new trade deals, not least for sugar, where the real danger remains that lowering or eliminating existing trade barriers could destroy our homegrown sugarbeet industry.
So it is vital that, as the government begins the process of identifying and negotiating the terms of those deals, that it does so with food and farming at the forefront, and that it doesn’t leave domestic producers at a competitive disadvantage to overseas producers who don’t have to meet such high standards. In particular, the government must be very careful, in its desire to show that the UK has a trading future outside the EU, not to rush into ill-considered agreements where the UK loses out.
Source: www.spectator.co.uk