Massive imports of cheap meat as a result of US trade deal threaten Yorkshire farmers - Andrew Vine

For agriculture, there was precisely nothing to celebrate. On the contrary, there was everything to be worried about.

A government patting itself on the back for having squeezed very limited concessions out of a protectionist US administration ignores the fact that agriculture has been sold down the river.

The deal may have taken pressure off the British car industry by negotiating down punitive tariffs on high-end vehicles such as Land Rovers, but it could be our farmers who pay the price for that.

To seal the deal, Britain has opened our market up to 13,000 tonnes of tariff-free beef, at least some of which will come from industrialised American farms that produce it more cheaply than we can and to lower welfare standards.

The scale of the imports soon to start arriving is illustrated by the fact the US currently exports only about 1,000 tonnes of beef to Britain.

One crucial reason talks had previously foundered is that governments sought to protect British agriculture from being unable to compete on price with the vast US meat industry, and so maintained a 20 per cent tariff.

The threat to British farmers is not only coming from America. Australia is getting in on the act as well, thanks to a botched and ill-considered post-Brexit deal from 2021.

The foreign secretary who agreed it was called Liz Truss. The upshot of her skill in negotiating is that Australian beef imports have shot up, increasing by 180 per cent last year compared with the previous 12 months.

The government has offered no explanation of how it expects farms to survive in the face of this onslaught on two fronts, especially when so many households are short of money and will inevitably opt for the cheapest meat they can find in supermarkets.

Abandoning agriculture to save the car industry can only result in long-term damage to the rural economy that matters so greatly to Yorkshire.

It is further evidence that this government either lacks understanding of the countryside in general and of farming in particular, or is indifferent to what befalls both.

Since coming to power, its every action in relation to rural matters has caused harm.

The list grows ever longer – punitive levels of inheritance tax that will bankrupt family farms, a determination to build on the greenbelt, closure of a subsidy scheme for nature-friendly farming and the possible seizure of land for re-wilding.

This trade deal, though, could be the worst blow yet because it has engineered potentially impossible economic consequences for farmers by granting the powerful American meat industry licence to exploit the British market for all it is worth.

It is not only farmers producing beef who are under threat. The deal allows huge amounts of US ethanol in, which potentially undercuts arable farmers who grow wheat to produce it. There have already been warnings that jobs could go at an ethanol plant in Hull as a result.

The public needs to be much more widely aware of the government’s disregard for agriculture, because if farms go out of business, we’re all in trouble. Do we really want to be eating food of dubious provenance instead of good, honest stuff produced here at home?

If the public isn’t yet taking as much notice as it should, MPs are waking up to the government’s deeply flawed approach.

That was apparent from last week’s report of the cross-party Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which was highly critical, calling for the changes to inheritance tax to be delayed because they were introduced without enough consultation or consideration of their impact.

The committee also had harsh words about the closure of the subsidy scheme, which has affected farmers’ confidence, and Defra’s poor performance.

Perhaps most importantly, it demanded the government urgently set out a vision for farming over the next 25 years to ensure food security and protection for the environment.