I'm gonna put this a little more succinctly. Post-Brexit, UK farming is utterly fucked.
You already had competitor agric giants (Canada, Australia, Brazil, US, Ukraine, NZ etc) Now you've made the giant farming industry of the EU your COMPETITOR.
Not yr partner. COMPETITOR.
You already had competitor agric giants (Canada, Australia, Brazil, US, Ukraine, NZ etc) Now you've made the giant farming industry of the EU your COMPETITOR.
Not yr partner. COMPETITOR.
You (the UK public) are either gonna be trapped in an ever deeper cycle of massive government subsidies to the farming community, or you are going to see unsubsidised, uneconomic farms go to the wall in droves.
Because you won't pay a price for a pint of milk, or a pound of beef mince, or some onions, that allows the farmer to make a living and the retailer to make a margin.
So prepare for fewer farms, fewer farmers and fewer British-grown goods on shelves.
So prepare for fewer farms, fewer farmers and fewer British-grown goods on shelves.
Because the beef farmers of Brazil & the dairy farmers of New Zealand & the wine growers of Australia & the wheat farmers of the Ukraine have been doing it for decades, have better climates, and can put product on shelves cheaper than their UK equivalents.
Grrrrr. You didn't need to do this. You didn't need to make it more expensive for people to buy good quality food.
It's so bloody stupid. The UK was nestled safely inside a giant EU-wide agricultural welfare safety net and has chosen to go out into the big wide world. Where The Wild Things Named Canada, Ukraine, US, Brazil etc Are. And of course, your new mega-competitor - EU farmers
In 1973, New Zealand went through this very thing. When we lost our 'unappreciated primary market' (boy - does that phrase ring any bells?) for our agric products, successive NZ govts layered in subsidy after subsidy. The worst of them was Supplementary Minimum Pricing ....
by which farmers were paid a state-mandated price, no matter the real market price. So if NZ's SMP for a kg of wool was say $2.00 but the world market price was $0.58, the NZ taxpayer stumped up the marginal difference of $1.42. Brilliant.
In order to make this work, NZ erected trade barriers the height of the Hoover Dam. Buying an overseas publication (eg The Economist) required written approval from the NZ Reserve Bank (our central bank). NZ - at the time a market of fewer than 3m people - used to ...
...manufacture their own farm vehicles. (It was a shocker called the Treka) alongside extremely expensive overseas imports.
It wasn't until the 1984 Labour Govt (a decade later!) went totally free-market and deregulated everything that NZ's farming economy matured and boomed.
It wasn't until the 1984 Labour Govt (a decade later!) went totally free-market and deregulated everything that NZ's farming economy matured and boomed.
And then that was because a country to the north with an absolutely enormous population, and a direct no-stops container ship sailing route to its ports, turned itself from a poor country into the 2nd wealthiest in the world. And bought almost every kg of everything we grow.
The UK cannot repeat this 'NZ economic revolution"
- You are already deregulated - more so than almost any other market economy.
- There is no 'poor 1985-like China' sitting out in the Atlantic waiting to take your ships.
- We (& the other giants) have a 3-decade headstart
- You are already deregulated - more so than almost any other market economy.
- There is no 'poor 1985-like China' sitting out in the Atlantic waiting to take your ships.
- We (& the other giants) have a 3-decade headstart
