After a period when it looked like the remain campaign in the UK was winning the debate, the leave side in the UK referendum debate received a boost this week with a poll that suggests 52% of voters want to leave the EU.

This poll is the first in a long while that suggests British voters are inclined to leave and follows a series of polls which suggested the UK was likely to vote to remain in the EU by a substantial majority.

There will now be an anxious wait on the next polls to see if this is an outlier or the start of a trend, with just three weeks to go until the real poll on 23 June.

The immediate impact on Irish farmers is how the sterling-euro relationship reacted.

The strengthening of the euro against sterling from around €0.70 to over €0.80 = £1 in the first quarter of this year is largely attributed to uncertainty about the vote in the UK on EU membership.

When several polls indicated a remain vote, the exchange rate moved back towards €0.75 = £1, but since the Brexit majority poll was announced, the rate has moved to €0.7725 = €1

See page 14 of this week's Irish Farmers Journal for more on Brexit.