The UK government will ensure that food is clearly labelled after Brexit, so ultimately it will be up to consumers to decide whether they want to buy imported food or not, a government minister has suggested.

In his address to the National Farmers Union Scotland (NFUS) conference in Glasgow last week, parliamentary undersecretary of state for Scotland Douglas Ross was unwilling to commit to ensuring that imports meet the same standards expected of UK farmers.

That was met by jeers from the audience and a retort from NFUS president Andrew McCornick.

“You would allow in food that would be illegal for us to produce – it is not acceptable,” he said.

However, Minister Ross, who is the Tory MP for Moray, did insist that the likes of chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef would not be allowed into the UK as part of a US trade deal.

While that might avoid any negative tabloid headlines for the government, the reality remains that few countries outside of the EU produce to the same UK animal welfare, traceability and assurance standards. At the end of last month, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told African leaders that beef from Uganda would have an “honoured place on the tables of Britain”.

Choices

Also speaking at the NFUS event, Food Standards Scotland chief executive Geoff Ogle outlined the difficult political and economic choices that lie ahead for the UK government in trade talks.

At present, 45% of all UK exports go to the EU (61% of UK agri-food exports), so there is a danger that if some of that EU trade is lost, there “could be lots of effort put in just to stand still”, suggested Ogle.

To minimise trade disruption and allow free trade, the EU wants the UK to align with EU regulations. However, government ministers are against that, and while they want to ultimately have an equivalent end point in standards, insist that the UK should be able to decide how it gets there.

“The further you move from alignment, the harder the access to the EU will be,” warned Ogle.

He also pointed out that just because you get a deal done with one country on food standards, another country might not automatically accept that all the processes are already in place – each country has their own approval, inspection and ongoing audit process.

The picture he painted was one of increased red tape and bureaucracy for business if a free trade deal isn’t done with the EU.

New vision for Ag payments in Scotland

In the Steps to Change document produced by NFUS in 2018, the union set out its vision for a gradual move away from existing area-based payments to a new system that ensures money only goes to farmers and is based on land that is actively farmed.

There was also a recognition that productivity and environmental measures should be incentivised as part of a new policy direction.

One group plotting a potential way forward for environmental-type payments is “Farming for 1.5 degrees”, a 10-strong inquiry panel made up of farmers, scientists and environmentalists.

The group is due to report this September, and at the NFUS conference last week, co-chairs Nigel Millar (ex-president of NFUS) and Mike Robinson (CEO of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society) outlined the challenges ahead.

In Scotland, the target is to be carbon-neutral by 2045 (compared to the UK target of 2050). “We are only going to see this issue becoming bigger this year. The world’s governments, consumers, and even your union believes in climate change, so it doesn’t matter if you don’t,” said Robinson.

The inquiry is to map out a staged process of change. The initial phase will identify where efficiencies and practices can help reduce waste and emissions. Described as “low-hanging fruit” by Robinson, some of the measures include improved nutrient and grassland management, using new livestock genetics, woodland creation and agroforestry.

One option might be to put together a list of these measures to effectively replace the 30% greening payment that farmers currently receive. The more boxes ticked, the more of this new greening payment a farmer will get.

Longer-term, the focus will move to look at how science and technology can deliver reductions in greenhouse gases (phase 2) and how land can deliver food production, as well as sequester carbon and improve biodiversity (phase 3).

“It is very complex and there are no silver bullets. But we are not going to get there (zero carbon by 2045) if agriculture doesn’t help,” said Robinson.

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