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BEEF FARMERS ARE warning that a hard Brexit would be “catastrophic” for them.
A new report entitled Crisis – The EU Meat Industry in a Hard Brexit Scenario this week found that trade would “collapse” in the event of a hard Brexit.
The report, commissioned by Europe’s meat Industry body, UECBV found that a hard Brexit would lead to:
The report adds that the scenario would lead to additional veterinary checks and increased transport costs lead to a reduction of trade in meat from EU to UK by up to 84% for beef, 76% for sheepmeat and 48% for pigmeat. The effect of this excess meat on the EU market would decrease beef price by 8.8% and pigmeat price by 7.3% in the short term.
Commenting on the report’s launch, Cormac Healy, Director of Meat Industry Ireland said:
“A hard Brexit represents the greatest threat to European producers, consumers and processors of meat, with a potential impact much greater than the Russian import ban.
“By potentially cutting off one of the largest and highest value meat markets in Europe, Brexit threatens to be catastrophic for the meat sector across Europe and UK.
In this worst case scenario, in which no deal between EU and UK is agreed, the impact to the meat sector will be devastating, due to the particular exposure of this sector to tariff burden, additional veterinary costs and increased customs and transport checks and associated logistics disruption.
“The findings contained in this Report confirm our worst fears: A Hard Brexit would send shock waves through the whole European meat industry, destroying jobs, crippling trade and devaluing meat output across the EU. The scale of this crisis is simply too great to ignore, and we implore policymakers to follow through on recommendations put forward in this Report and to protect this vital European food sector” he added.
The report says that there will be major disruption to modern fresh meat and just-in-time trade flows which are underpinned by sophisticated logistics systems, creating further losses for the meat sector, and depriving consumers in the UK of fresh meat supply.
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84% drop in beef exports to the uk – such sensationalism thejournal.ie
Firstly the UK I presume won’t want to starve it’s people – so they are going to have to buy their beef from somewhere……
Secondly the uk exported 80,000 tonnes of beef to the EU last year, would irish beef farmers not need to pick up this slack in the event of a hard Brexit?
Solution – pick up the 80,000 tonnes of beef eu trade the uk is forfeiting and supply uk with remaining 17% – 42,500 tonnes
Hey that’s an increase of demand of 2,500 tonnes on last years requirement….
@Karl Monaghan: i think you’ll find we can get cheaper products without dropping standards, ireland isn’t the only country we can buy meat from and if the UK consumer demands more meat then UK farmers will invest and produce the meat that the consumers demand, we in the UK want Hard Brexit we don’t care about the businesses in ireland its not the UK problem if ireland stays in the EU dictatorship, it don’t matter if the EU has your back or not it still won’t stop the destruction of irish businesses
@rich jezzer: So, where will this meat come from? Frozen and shipped all the way from Australia, New Zealand or Canada? Will the British public be willing to shoulder the additional cost of transport? I don’t think so! Will the supermarkets absorb the increased prices? I don’t think so either.
@Karl Monaghan: The report is a “worst case scenario”, in the event of there being no trade agreement between the EU and the UK. If there’s no trade agreement, we won’t be able to sell our beef to the UK.
In terms of exporting our beef to the EU where the UK had been exporting, the extra transport costs in getting our beef to the continent (do we put the cattle on a ferry direct to France? Do we transport them via the UK?) mean most EU importers probably won’t buy Irish beef and will look internally on the continent.
@Ruairi Gagarin: I’d be happy to pivot away from Irish beef to New Zealand lamb. More than happy. In fact I think I might do it anyway.
@Ruairi Gagarin:
Sorry Ruairi but beef can be produced, frozen and shipped from the countries mentioned considerably cheaper than can be produced here, a combination of lower standards, very large scale and modern efficient transport.
@P.J. Nolan: You hit the nail on the head when you said they could import meat with “Lower Standards”. Any imported meat still has to pass UK standards. Will the UK lower their current standards and will the UK consumer accept substandard meat? That is the question.
@rich jezzer: You just show how little you know of UK agriculture. The UK is not self sustainable in food production. Even the UK’s own National Farmers Union stated “We will only be in a position to feed 57% of the population by 2045 even if we brought up production to max capacity starting today”. (Btw. A little tip for you when writing in English. When you start a sentence your first letter should be a capital. And when you finish a sentence a full stop is customary. Names of people and places start with a Capital letter. Other punctuation marks are also helpful. Ask your English language teacher to show you.)
@Mick Jordan: i know the truth is hard to accept for such a tiny insignificant country like ireland but fact of the matter is we don’t rely on ireland even though you like to think your important to the UK when in reality your not,There’s plenty more countries where we can get our meat from at the same standards and at reasonable prices and we can easily bring in meat from australia or new zealand by air freight, once we’ve left ireland will be geographically f*ucked in the an*us with the closure of the common travel area for irish hauliers meaning a boat from ireland to france would take 18 hours and just remember time is money meaning hundreds of thousands of job cuts in ireland :)
@rich jezzer: Ireland – A tiny, insignificant Country that Rich Jezzer cannot stop commenting about, whenever a Brexit story appears on The Journal!
@rich jezzer: I see you haven’t spoken to your English Language teacher yet. So do tell, where will you buy your meat from that is the equlivent standard and has the same traceability? Steroid enhanced beef from Argentina? Frozen Lamb and Mutton from Australia and New Zealand? Frozen steroid enhanced pork and bacon from Canada? And what happens to UK livestock farmers when all this cheap meat is imported, and let us not forget all the other jobs that rely on the livestock markets such as butchering and processing fresh meat. And not just only meat where are you going to source enough fresh fruit,veg and grain from? Will the likes of Nissan stay in the UK when it would be far more economically viable for them to shift production to within the EU.
So brexit will be helpful to the environment.
Well at least thats one good thing to come out of it.
@Stephen Maher: they will chop down the rainforest in South America to produce cheap beef and ship it to UK.
If anyone was serious about the environment then population control would be the number 1 topic, it isn’t so all the crap put out there is commercial biased and revenue generating. But if it makes you feel good you can pretend your doing your part while nothing changes
Is the UK moving to the Moon? I thought we were only recently celebrating meat sales to China and the Middle East
@alphanautica:
Miniscule by comparison.
Steps to avoid a hard brexit:
1. Marinate your brexit in bullshit for at least 24 months.
2. Remove the brexit from the committee stage and season liberally with salt and conservatively with pepper.
3. Place brexit in a bowl of pre-heated public opinion. TIP: reduce mess by lining base of oven with whatever newspaper you disagree with.
4. Baste brexit in its own juices every 20 millions. Remove from power when outrage light goes off.
5. Cover in tinfoil hat until public tender.
6. Garnish with salad of regret & serve cold.
@Lester Jeffcoat: And then serve this delicious dish to Boris Johnson.
Irish beef is the best beef in the world
@Bob McTanned: it’s a small beef but it fights above its weight and it’s very well educated.
Are the British suddenly going to stop eating meat? Yes there would be red tape and tarriffs but the fact is the UK is not in a position to feed itself. So it has to import food.
@Mick Jordan:
Correct, and they can get it cheaper elsewhere, all be it with lower standards.
@P.J. Nolan: As I said above will the UK consumer accept substandard meat? And will the UK’s MAFF lower their current standards to allow it’s importation?
@P.J. Nolan: All standards are contingent on keeping the North/South status quo which is why the UK politicians are eager to ‘move on’ but really want to escape the Irish issue. Listening to their politicians (Nigel, Jacob) on BBC this morning is an education given they showed no interest or knowledge whatsoever in Irish affairs while Nigel said he would take the EU pension despite his very patriotic language. Too many comments from the Irish here sink to the level that suits the Brexiteers as they play out scenarios in their heads rather than deal with what is in front of them.
@P.J. Nolan: Added to what I said above a flood of cheap substandard meat into the UK would destroy the UK’s own livestock industry. Farmers, slaughterhouses and other meat processing plants would no longer have the business to remain viable. That’s a lot of people on the dole. And then we come to traceability. Under current regulations meat products can be traced back to an individual animal on a a particular farm from birth to death. Will the UK authorities be willing to abandon that?
@Mick Jordan:
Some well made points but there are a lot of customers will view the price and little else. Irish agriculture is a niche product, high quality, high price.
Due to our high labour, materials and land costs we will never compete with the likes of Brazil.
The EU food regulations in the UK will not disappear overnight, but in time, especially with tory governments, they will be watered down.
Your second point about destroying there own agriculture, British agriculture, as a percentage of the economy compared to Ireland is very very small and they have a much less powerful lobby than in this country and to an extent, the continent also.
@P.J. Nolan: UK agriculture though small still employs a lot of people not just directly but indirectly. All of them will be made redundant. Added to that the UK would become totally dependent on outside food supply. And any interruption to that chain would be disastrous for the UK. British consumers have gotten used to cheap high quality food stuffs over the past 50 years. They may get used to cheap low quality, substandard food from now on.
The Brexit media sensationalism is tired now. The fact that Britain are negotiating it just as intensely as the EU suggests that neither party desire a hard exit. Otherwise they would have just simply exited already.
It’s become a real pain the hole listening to the us and them infantile mentality and there’s far too many self appointed expert arseholes peddling speculative bullshit for the sake of it.
This is why a deal and negotiation are needed. Simply saying “The UK caused this, they must find all the solutions.” is short sighted and stupid.
Time to stop with the political and start with the practical.
@Damocles: A ‘deal’ indeed !, you sound like Nigel who found an audience for his make-believe Britain while making things up as he went along. The UK didn’t cause anything for the cause itself is so vague that the UK politicians don’t know what to look for apart from a notion that they will not be like the EU. We, on this island, have a clear idea that a borderless island is really a great thing that satisfies most communities culturally, economically and bottom line.
@Gerald Kelleher: what make believe Britain did Nigel Farage talk about??
@Cathal S Byrne: The make-believe Britain no politician in Britain can get their head around and neither can anyone else. What is better than the current situation between the North and the South ?. The words ‘self-harm’ emerged after the referendum but with no meaningful opposition in Britain, there is nothing to throw a bomb into the illusion.
Any mention of red meat being classified by the World Health Organisation as a class 1 type carcinogen? Just like cigarettes… nope. Not a hope. Eat less red meat = less problems with the industry lol
@rich jezzer:
Yup
Brits don’t care, especially when it’s the UK exiting.
Maybe go learn some economics and repost.
BTW the EU members elect governments and they appoint – just like the UK has done for 44 years!
What a load of cow dung.
@@mdmak33: I suppose you will expect a subsidy for producing that too ?
@Ian Kavanagh:
Your a tad obsessed about grants.
Some facts for you.
Total grants 1.6 billion, of which 1.3 comes from the EU. (Teagesc)
140,000 farmers with an average of 80 acres so it costs the Irish taxpayer a little over €2,100 per farmer.
Approx another 110,000 people employed in agriculture related business, processing etc.
New Zealand has no grants and a similar type of agriculture to us, climate, land type etc.
Average size farm, 820 acres.
If only 1in 6 of the people now employed in agriculture ended up on the dole after removal of grants it’s the Irish taxpayer that will suffer.
And that’s before any suggestion of increased food prices
We had a hard–a very hard Brexit back in the nineteen thirties because of Dev’s anglo phobic and agoraphobic obsessions.He impoverished the whole agricultural industry for decades and consequently the finances of the whole country.!
Will be British stop eating then? Where will they get food if they can feed their all people if they don’t buy to Ireland? They will still buy the meat doesn’t matter the price of it’s high or low. Plus they like good fresh meat, they won’t buy bad quality of meat. Farmers have to have something clear, blame the British because they are the ones how came with all this mess.
Catastrophic
The country will be awash with horses.
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