George Eustice: UK Agriculture would ‘manage’ under no deal scenario

Agriculture would be ‘fine’ if the UK was unable to come to a free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union after Brexit, and the majority of farming sectors would actually benefit, according to Farming Minister George Eustice.

Speaking at the AHDB meat exports conference in Warwick, Mr Eustice said sector would be able to manage if there was no deal with the EU.

Benefits

“The vast majority of agricultural sectors in the UK actually benefit from a WTO scenario, that sounds surprising because obviously everybody has got used to thinking about free trade,” he said.

“The reason for that is the competition from Irish beef, competition from salads from Spain or vegetables from France, goes down and actually gives a firming of farmgate prices in the UK.”

But he acknowledged the sheep sector would be the exception.

“We would have to in the short term obviously support those sheep sector producers and redouble our efforts in other markets, such as the Middle East, to new markets for our lamb products.”

When asked how the government would support the sector in a ‘worst case scenario’ Mr Eustice said they were ‘not at that stage yet’.

“Our priority is to get that Free Trade Agreement but if during the course of development of agriculture policy it became apparent that we might be coming out on WTO scenarios, obviously at that point we would start putting in some thinking as to what the domestic policy response to that situation would have to be.”