Australian and New Zealand trade deals will undermine British farmers - Yorkshire Post Letters

For many years Britain has been producing high quality food to good environmental and animal welfare standards.

Britain has been able to grow and produce sufficient food enough to meet 75 per cent of our own needs, the remaining amount coming largely from the EU and North Africa.

Government agricultural policy has encouraged farmers to raise environmental standards while maintaining food production.

Recent negotiation and adoption of Australian and New Zealand trade deals have not been subject to the full scrutiny of Parliament. These will go a long way to undermining our farmers, as well as food and environmental standards due to importing high intensity, lower welfare standard produced meat. This would have to be shipped 12,000 miles across the world with the resulting costs to the environment.

Britain’s Parliament has quite rightly passed laws to set strict laws to reduce greenhouse gases by 78 per cent by 2035 leading to the UK becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

These are not negotiable, they are laws that must be met if we have any chance in holding the rise in global warming to 1.5°C. These will also require the reduction in people’s meat consumption which would benefit our health.

The Australia/NZ Trade deal runs totally counter to these targets as well as undermining our farmers and our agricultural policy.

Former Defra Secretary George Eustace has recently condemned these trade deals as damaging the future of British farming by importing meat produced to lower welfare standards. These trade deals offer plenty to Australia and New Zealand but damage to UK farmers and consumers and do nothing to cut carbon gases.