Farmers facing crop dilemma ahead of EU agreement being finalised
Farmers are facing an additional dilemma over what to plant in the coming weeks after being advised an impending UK-EU food agreement could render some crops unsaleable.
A meeting at the Great Yorkshire Showground staged by Jeremy Moody, secretary of the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers, heard producers could make cropping and crop-protection decisions before the final regulatory requirements are known over the proposed Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement.
The agreement aims to align the UK with relevant EU rules across areas such as animal and plant health, pesticides, food safety, organics, labelling, veterinary medicines and agricultural marketing standards.
The Government is aiming for the agreement to take effect in mid-2027 and has warned every business in the agri-food sector to prepare, including those that do not currently trade with the EU.
A Defra spokesman said: “While the timeline is ambitious, the reward is worth the effort. We’ve been listening to businesses since last May and understand the concerns raised about how the new agreement could affect them. We know that some businesses require longer to adjust to the new arrangements, and we will work with them to ensure a smooth transition. We want to ensure that every business, whatever their size or circumstances, has the time and support they need to adjust and be ready to take full advantage from day one.”
Mr Moody told the Harrogate event the Government was negotiating in confidence a deal with the EU that would regulate virtually all food production, including the domestic British trade, ahead of next year’s harvest.
He said: "If you were producing lamb in Yorkshire to be sold for a Yorkshire butcher for a Yorkshireman to eat that would be subject to the EU reset as if you were trying to sell to the Germans.
"This will regulate animal transport, where developing EU transport rules could put some of our animals further from an abbatoir than would be legally possible to travel.”
He highlighted a study by farming consultancy Anderson Centre for Crop Life earlier this year which concluded if the rules are changed overnight, as the Government has said it intends to, the loss of crop protection products could cost UK arable farming more than £800m through lost yields and increased husbandry costs.
Mr Moody said: “Underneath all this there’s the very distinctive point that this Government has decided it is in our interests to pass the regulation of the UK domestic food market over to Brussels where we have no voice. You could produce that one day is legally saleable and the next day it isn’t, such as potatoes that have been treated with something perfectly legal.”
Among those attending the event was shadow farming minister and Keighley MP Robbie Moore, said as proposed the agreement would damage the country’s biosecurity.
He said: “We’re not quite sure what the deal is, but if they go for full alignment, which seems to be what they’re advocating for, and the fact that we know there's been no red lines in any of the negotiations and that in the negotiations the upper hand really sits with the 27 member states, this will be hugely detrimental to biosecurity because we are effectively losing our sovereign ability to control decisions about insecticides, herbicides and pesticides.”
Mr Moore warned that certain products or commodities that sit in store would not be able to be sold into that market because they have used an unrecognised product by the EU.