THE president of the NFU has responded to the announcement of an Agreement in Principle for a UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

“We have been clear about our concerns over the potential impact of trade deals that completely eliminate all tariffs on imports from the biggest agricultural exporters in the world”, said Minette Batters.

“While details remain very thin on the ground, it appears that the agreement will include important safeguards that attempt to strike a balance between liberalising trade and supporting UK farm businesses, as well as a reasonable time period to allow UK farmers to adjust to the new trading environment.

“We await further details of the agreement to understand whether these safeguards are sufficient and in particular, that they can be deployed effectively should imports rise to an unmanageable level, leading to significant market disruption.

“I am concerned that today’s announcement appears to have made no mention of animal welfare and environmental standards. While the Government has previously been keen to highlight how our Free Trade Agreements will uphold our high standards of food production, there has always been a question mark over how this can be achieved while opening up our markets to food produced to different standards. We will need to know more about any provisions on animal welfare and the environment to ensure our high standards of production are not undermined by the terms of this deal.

“The ultimate test of this trade deal will be whether it contributes to moving farming across the world onto a more sustainable footing, or whether it instead undermines UK farming and merely exports the environmental and animal welfare impact of the food we eat.

“It is critical that the Government now engages with industry on the details of the deal as soon as possible and that Parliament is involved much more during the final stages of the negotiations to ensure it has sufficient oversight of the agreement.”