Time for Ian Botham to bat for farmers and not Boris Johnson – Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Pauline Allon, Ilkley.
cricket legend Ian Botham is Britain's trade ambassador to Australia.cricket legend Ian Botham is Britain's trade ambassador to Australia.
cricket legend Ian Botham is Britain's trade ambassador to Australia.

BREXIT isn’t working for British farmers. The Government has agreed a free trade agreement with Australia and is in the process of obtaining a similar agreement with New Zealand, resulting in cheap agricultural imports into the UK threatening to undermine UK farming.

The deals also reduce 
quotas on imported 
agricultural goods, again threatening UK markets with cheap food, yet another threat 
for the future of UK 
farming.

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Also of concern is that the Trade and Agriculture Commission set up to 
advise Government on the impact of trade deals on UK agriculture is non-existent.

The impact of Brexit on farming continues to prompt much debate and discussion.The impact of Brexit on farming continues to prompt much debate and discussion.
The impact of Brexit on farming continues to prompt much debate and discussion.

The EU was our largest and nearest trading partner but since Brexit, food exports to the EU have decreased by at least 45 per cent, beef exports down by 92 per cent, pork exports by 87 per cent and lamb and mutton by 45 per cent.

Borderless trading with the EU has been replaced with increased costs and bureaucracy forcing many smaller food producers out of business or to transfer manufacture from the UK to the EU.

We’ve heard that Ian Botham is ‘batting for Britain’, but is he ‘batting’ for UK farmers or merely for Boris Johnson’s government?

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