The 13th AHDB Meat Exports Conference was held yesterday (Thursday) in Warwick, one year on from the UK decision to leave the EU.

The focus of the conference was trading in a post-Brexit world, as will be the case after 2019 unless the period for discussions is extended which will require the agreement of the 27 other EU members.

Adam Quinney, a Shropshire farmer who chairs the AHDB Beef and Lamb board, introduced the keynote speaker for the event, George Eustace, MP, Minister of State for Agriculture Fisheries and Food. The minister, who campaigned for the UK to leave the EU, gave an upbeat assessment of how competitive British agriculture would be once the UK leaves the EU.

ADVERTISEMENT

He was positive in his assessment of how UK farmers could find opportunities once the UK was free to pursue its own trade deals. He also reaffirmed that there would be no change in the support for farming during this parliament from what was available under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and that a new policy would be developed during this Parliament that would take effect from after the next general election with an input from the devolved administrations.

Jean Pierre Garnier from AHDB’s exports division updated the conference on progress over the past year in growing export sales across all major export markets for both beef and lamb. The benefit from a significant weakening in the value of sterling in driving export sales was acknowledged.

Professor Alan Matthews, Professor Emeritus of European Agricultural Policy at Trinity College, gave a presentation on how the UK could choose to trade with the EU outside being a member. This included the different types of membership of the single market, membership of the customs union and having a comprehensive free-trade agreement. The problem with all of these is that they bring with them conditions on movement of people and court jurisdiction that the UK Government doesn’t want.

That leaves the default position of falling back on WTO trading terms which are particularly onerous on beef and sheepmeat trading. AHDB used the conference to launch a comprehensive 32-page study on how WTO membership works and what it means in a global trading context. It provides detail on the various levels of tariffs UK beef and lamb exports to the EU would be subject to as well of course as imports arriving in the UK from EU countries.

There will be full analysis of the conference papers and what it means for Scottish farming in next week’s Farmers Journal Scotland