AIBU to think Brexit voters did not foresee the gov shafting UK farmers

[SancerreSunsets]

During the build up to the 2016 referendum I saw several massive boards advertising Leave in local farming fields ... as a pro-European, it was the sight of these boards that made me worry about the potential outcome of the vote and my fears became reality.
Now it's possible that Johnson's gov will agree a trade deal with Australia that will flood our market with cheap Australian produce (that is not subjected to the same standards as in EU countries). It's even being suggested that this will make farming in the UK unviable and the gov will have to pay farmers off! This seems mental! Brexit voters I know are keen to buy British produce. Will they and the Brexit voting farmers now being to complain about the Brexit they're being given? They might be listened to more than Remain voters ... we tried for years are generally ignored.

@FancyRomford

Well remembered. Their farmers really struggled. Yes they will want tariff free access.

Also, who says AUS and NZ don’t have equivalent standards to the UK? Farmers with an interest in the outcome.

The ban on hormone beef by the EU isn’t lawful - or indeed not backed by science either, I think.

Now it's possible that Johnson's gov will agree a trade deal with Australia that will flood our market with cheap Australian produce (that is not subjected to the same standards as in EU countries). How are the Australian standards different? Will it be cheaper than EU produce already imported to the UK? Groceries cost more in Australia than in the UK.

But I thought all this was “Project Fear”?

If people didn’t know what they were voting for it’s because they didn’t want to listen.

As for the differing health standards, does the US/Oz/NZ have a higher rate of food poisoning than the UK?

Is this relevant? The objections to food produced to lower standards than allowed in the UK are not about food poisoning. There are concerns about the use of growth hormones and other drugs that harm the animals and can cause harm in humans; that hygiene standards are so poor that meat has to be washed in chlorine; that crops grown for human and animal consumption are sprayed with chemicals that can cause cancer in humans and that threaten the bees and other pollenating insects and that animal welfare standards are not as high as in the UK.

it's funny that sovereignty now means shafting your own agri sector.

Thanks to those who answered my questions. I'll be watching this with interest.

Australia has a massive problem in that in the last 20 years it has become extremely reliant on China and Chinese ownership of Australian land and companies has increased massively.

They were very brave to call for an enquiry into the origin of Covid19 and have been punished for doing so. Nothing to do with Brexit, but Australia does need to find other markets for its beef, cattle, iron ore, wine etc exports. As far as I am aware Australian meat is high quality, but of course don't want British farmers to struggle. Not to mention having to transport it here.

That's another blow to the environment then.

I don't understand how it's going to be cheaper than EU produce. Groceries cost me more in Australia, UK supermarket food is cheap! Australia has to pay Australian minimum wage which isn't cheap, many farmers underpay backpackers, but I'd have thought labour would be cheaper in some EU countries.

Remain voting farmer here.

Don't assume all farmers voted to leave. Certainly not the case.

It's a big problem for Uk farmers that we are held up to such high standards that are just not either there, or enforced in other countries.

I have audit, after audit after audit to check that we are following the rules. Southernn Europe were not audited in the same way that we are.

Oz can farm on a scale that is not only frowned upon here but very difficult to do. But with the drought problems they have I'm not sure looking to Oz for our food security is the best thing in the world.

After last years empty shelves I'm so surprised our government isn't way more into food security. Not only for you know, guaranteed food but food miles, the environment and communities.

I listened to a webinar this week where they estimate 25% of farmers will be paid to plant trees in the next few years. The supermarkets will just be full of food imported from other countries where they're not as bothered as we are!

There are other issues than just the quality and standards of imported Australian meat.

If the UK government allows the import of meat and agricultural products from Australia that are produced to lower standards, then every other country will demand this as part of a trade deal. Particularly the USA, Canada and Argentina.

Importing food from countries 10,000 miles away rather than from countries just 22 miles away makes a huge difference to the food miles and associated pollution. It is only financially viable as long as ships are allowed to burn low-quality bunker fuel. If this is outlawed then the cost of freight increases as fuel prices increase and the number of available ships reduces.

While the UK is not self-sufficient in food (and hasn't been for 170 years) it is a dangerous policy to become almost entirely dependent on imported food, which would be the case if British farms were to be forced out of business. What happens when food prices rise, when there is a crop failure or disease in a major food-producing country, or when conflicts (or a ship stuck in the Suez Canal) disrupt supplies?

Finally, farming is still an important employer in the UK. Not just the farmers, but also the associated industries (vets, food processors, agricultural machinery companies, transport companies etc) employ many more people than the industries that Boris is so keen to promote. Whole communities would collapse if farming were to become uneconomic - which is one reason why governments everywhere are keen to subsidise it.

@DioneTheDiabolist

That's another blow to the environment then.

At I said above, it really isn't that simple. If you eat Spanish tomatoes for example, you are contributing to enormous environmental damage. Just because food in from Europe and therefore travels fewer miles to the UK, it isn't necessarily blameless from an environmental (or human) view. Far from it in fact.

So much over simplifying on this thread.

I am just sickened with what this country has turned into and deeply afraid of what the future holds for those of us not born into money.

What’s the plan, Brexiteers? There never was one. How are ordinary people with nothing other than their labour to make a living with going to live in this corrupted overpopulated technological dump?

Farmers are not being shafted, they are just being nimbys. The animal welfare argument is nonsense because there is no evidence that UK has higher standards than Australia. Why should the consumer and the greater good of the economy be held to ransom by people who have had decades of govt subsidies already and could not runs viable business by themselves.

The animal welfare argument is nonsense because there is no evidence that UK has higher standards than Australia.

There is plenty of evidence - including the articles already posted:

www.thegrocer.co.uk/sourcing/how-do-uk-food-standards-differ-from-the-rest-of-the-world/645635.article

From Which:

Growth-promoting hormones in beef cattle, similarly banned in the UK and EU, are permitted in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and in the US. In addition, ractopamine, a growth-promoter used in pigs, is banned in the UK, China, the EU and Russia, but allowed in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the US.

Neonicotinoids used on rape crops are banned in the UK and EU because of concerns they cause harm to bees, but they are still used in Australia and Canada.

Other insecticides banned in the UK and EU but used elsewhere include dimethoate, which is used in Australia and the US, and fipronil which is used in Australia, India and the US.

www.which.co.uk/news/2020/09/brexit-trade-deals-how-uk-food-standards-compare-to-the-world/

The animal welfare argument is nonsense because there is no evidence that UK has higher standards than Australia.

There is plenty of evidence - including the articles already posted

Is this going to be like before Brexit happened and everyone jumped up and down squawking about how we'd all be doomed to eating nothing but American chlorinated chicken?

American hasn't shown any inclination to a deal with Britain. So the welcome lack of chlorinated chicken on the shelves certainly isn't down to any superior decision making by Truss and co.

Good points being made about food security too. With climate change, do we really want to lose our farming industry? These bids for trade deals with countries further afield seems rather desperate - an attempt to make a success of a poorly-thought through idea. I don't think it's going to help us in the long run. Surely the Brexiters can come up with some better solutions?

@TwoAndAnOnion

I laughed long and hard at a radio interview with a farmer who freely admitted voting for Brexit, and was stunned to find his subsidies have since stopped and he's going bankrupt.

If it hadn't fucked us all over so much I'd laugh with you, but the reality is that such a massive decision has been handed to a load of thickos who didn't have a fucking clue what they were voting for.

As well as the farmers surprised that they don't get EU subsidies when we are no longer in the EU, we have the people who retired to Spain who were happy to announce on BBC breakfast TV that they were voting leave 'because of all the immigrants' now complaining that their cosy life in Benidorm isn't as convenient as it used to be now they're no longer entitled to EU freedoms to live where they like.

You couldn't make it up.

That 'we haven't imported any chlorinated chicken yet' is just about the biggest boast that the brexiters can make says it all about their silly project.

What about the land management? If all these farms are forced to shut, will the countryside become some sort of overgrown mess? Someone will have to pay for it to be looked after surely?

@namechange34

I'm Aussie in the UK. The first time I took my European DH around an Aus supermarket he was WTF at the meat. The chicken breasts are almost double the size of those you find in Sainsburys

High weight in chickens generally means poor conditions. Factory farmed chicken are often so fat due to zero space to move and overfeeding and hormones they are unable to stand.

So I would not interpret bigger as better in this case.

Keep animals on the land to stop it becoming an "overgrown mess" just let them live out their lives to their natural age. But don't send them into a horrific slaughter house. Regular vet checks,then euthanize them when their time comes. Treat them with the same dignity that we do with a pet.

Meat is really expensive in Australia but great quality, I lived out there for a bit. Not sure how it would be so cheap here?

I think it’s hugely funny the government needs to appoint an advisor to identify and publicise the benefits of Brexit. One might reasonably expect the promised land to be very evident. Why the need to search for the benefits?

I have little sympathy for anyone who voted for Brexit and has suffered detriment because of it. Turkeys and Christmas.

I do feel for those genuinely too dim to understand they were being lied to and encouraged to blame immigrants for government failings. The hard of thinking who buy the Mail or Express cannot understand that they were being manipulated by the likes of Rees-Mogg who wanted to avoid tax payments being introduced by the EU.