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Coronavirus: UK farmers face brutal test ahead of Brexit

The pandemic has exposed tensions over food security that are now playing out in the UK-EU trade talks

Disruptions from coronavirus have elevated the issue of food security globally. Governments have rushed to shore up food supply chains upended by the closure of restaurants and the grounding of flights. 

This process carries added urgency in the UK, which, having left the EU, now faces a critical decision about the future of its food market. The UK’s transitional trading and border arrangements with the EU end on December 31, and without a permanent trade deal by then the UK could crash out, cutting into food export markets and severely hurting business for farmers such as Mr Yates.

Even without such a “no-deal” exit, the terms the UK agrees with other countries on trade in food and agricultural products will determine the extent to which farmers are forced to compete with rivals from overseas. This will affect levels of food self-sufficiency and perhaps dictate whether the UK's fragmented farming sector must face a brutal transformation into a globalised industry.

Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers’ Union, says government ministers are divided on how to safeguard the industry post-Brexit. “It’s a major reset moment for food and farming, and a failure to get it right will be disastrous,” she says.

Up to this year UK farmers received about £3bn in annual EU subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy, which aims to protect European farmers and food supplies. While trading freely within the bloc, they had been protected from competition outside it by high tariffs on agricultural food products. Free movement of people has also benefited British farmers: about 70,000 to 80,000 mainly eastern European seasonal workers travel to the UK to harvest fruit and vegetables each year. 

The existing subsidies will be gradually replaced with a UK environmental payments scheme which is promised to be of similar value, starting in 2021. But details of this scheme are still unknown, as are the UK’s future trading arrangements. New trade deals could subject farmers to cheaper overseas competition, potentially bringing down food prices for consumers, but also forcing some of the UK’s 140,000 farms out of business. 

Making a nod to the farming industry’s main fear, Ms Batters says: “I have heard ministers say that Brexit is the opportunity to bring in cheap raw ingredients and add value to them under the Union Jack.”

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