Ulster farmers 'will not wave white flag' over Brexit talks

Last month, Irish agriculture minister Michael Creed said there was 'no upside' for Irish farmers after Brexit.
Last month, Irish agriculture minister Michael Creed said there was 'no upside' for Irish farmers after Brexit.

Ulster farmers will 'not lie down and wave the white flag' when Brexit negotiations begin, says Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) president Barclay Bell.

"Currently the UK is 60% self-sufficient in food, so 40% of our food has to be imported to feed the 60 million people in the UK," he told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster.

"The Danes will want to continue to get their bacon on our supermarket shelves, Ireland will want to continue to get their beef and dairy products into our markets, France will want to get in with their wine.

"Here we have the world's fifth biggest economy and reciprocal arrangements will have to be established."

Mr Bell says the outcome of these negotiations will shape the future of agriculture – but he has warned that the process will demand patience.
Mr Bell says the outcome of these negotiations will shape the future of agriculture – but he has warned that the process will demand patience.

Last month, Irish agriculture minister Michael Creed said there was 'no upside' for Irish farmers after Brexit.

"The immediate things that are coming into focus is sterling but even where we were last week - we’ve been in that space for five of the last ten years so there is nothing new in that that level of volatility," Creed said.

"But if the value of sterling continued to worsen, we would have to consider whether we would want specific policy instruments to tackle that - that’s an issue for my department in consultation with the Taoiseach’s department and the whole of Government and the Central Bank."

Exit goals

The Ulster Farmers' Union drew up a list of priorities as the long process of negotiating a replacement for the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) begins.

Mr Bell says the outcome of these negotiations will shape the future of agriculture – but he has warned that the process will demand patience.

"There are no quick fix solutions out there. Farmers need to understand that this will be a slow and often frustrating process," said Mr Bell.

"However we have to start with a road map of where we want to go. That is why we believed that it was crucial, even at this early stage, to set out what we consider the priorities are for the negotiations."

Those priorities included maintaining support to farmers equivalent to that presently provided by the EU.

Professor Curran said said non-tariff barriers could raise costs for NI farmers by between 2% and 4% and a recent study by the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) found that a 2% increase in non-tariff barriers could actually reduce the North's GDP by 1.4% in the long-run. That is if border and custom controls are re-introduced.

"The best-case scenario would be a Norwegian-style deal with access to the European Free Trade Area and membership of the European Economic Area.

"We cannot return to the kind of trade agreements that existed pre-EU membership in 1973 which provided special access for agricultural products. That’s not legally possible anymore because of the EU treaties."