The Oxford Farming Conference has always had a number of Irish attendees keen to gauge the feeling in what is by far Irish agriculture’s largest market. Half our beef, half our cheese and almost all our forestry and mushroom exports go to the UK.

I had never heard Ireland referred to so often.

The Agriculture and Horticultural Development Board gave a presentation on how it was trying to break into markets as far apart as China and the US but the total budget of £8m pales into insignificance beside Bord Bia’s €46.6m in direct government aid plus farmer levies and other funds.

The differences are clear. Irish beef is being sold in China and the US. Discussions are ongoing in the case of British products, though progress is being made.

With Britain the third-largest food importer in the world, it’s not clear how its agricultural exports will ever be anything except a niche – Scotch whisky is obviously one of the star products, together with lamb and speciality cheeses such as Stilton.

It seems clear British farmers and their food industry should be much more concerned about whether or not the standards applying to British food exports will remain in line with the EU or will they be reduced to facilitate trade deals, especially with the US.

Even on this question, the UK government seems to be divided, with secretary of state for agriculture Michael Gove telling the conference “we will import but cannot bargain away environmental and animal health and welfare standards” but the trade side of the UK government has given no such commitment.

He repeated his pledge to place more emphasis on environmental payments with a seven-year phasing out of the Basic Payment Scheme but intriguingly held out the possibility of “rolling this forward into a lump sum” for those wanting to leave the industry.

Speakers referred to the future strategy and contrasted the UK’s lack of precision with the Irish Government’s approach in the FoodWise initiative.

Britain has always had superb science research

The following day, UK agriculture minister George Eustice spoke about his ambitions for extra UK beef production at the expense of Irish imports, of extra UK pig production at the expense of Danish imports and extra UK horticultural output at the expense of Dutch imports.

How these aspirations were going to be squared with the new trade realities after Brexit was not clear.

There was overwhelming audience support for a strong, publicly funded research and development programme.

Britain has always had superb science research. The application of it has often been patchy and over-commercialised but its basic research has been outstanding. The case for the continuation of Teagasc’s research programmes is strong.

I don’t think I have ever seen UK agriculture and its service sectors at such a crossroads.

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