Farming and conservation groups have joined forced to urge the new international trade secretary to put high food, environment and welfare standards at the heart of upcoming negotiations.
In an open letter to Kemi Badenoch, organisations including the National Farmers Union, WWF and Compassion in World Farming called on the MP to “embed the principle of a level playing field” into her approach to negotiations with India and CPTPP countries that include Canada and Japan.
Deals already struck with CPTPP countries Australia and New Zealand have faced criticism for not requiring food and drink exporters to meet UK standards.
In their letter to Badenoch, the group noted how “the recent lifting of tariffs and quotas without any equivalence on animal welfare or environmental standards for Australian producers means that UK farmers will now compete with imported food produced to standards that would be illegal in the UK, exacerbating concerns that the deal exports our carbon footprint, increasing transport emissions and the risk of deforestation overseas”.
The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health has also expressed concern that free trade agreements resulting in lower food standards in the UK could potentially place consumers at risk. It said recently there was a “real fear” that UK farmers will be significantly undercut and unable to compete with cheaper produce entering the market from Australia, adding there is also a “potential public health risk of lower quality food flooding the UK market”.
In the letter to Badenoch, the groups wrote that they were encouraged to see that during the 2018 trade bill debate the MP noted that the UK should “demand the same standards of farmers in other countries as we do of our own…” and that “[w]e must have a level playing field” to ensure British food and farming standards are not undercut.
They noted too how “major UK retailers, the first Trade and Agriculture Commission, the Climate Change Committee, the National Food Strategy, and the International Trade, Environment Food and Rural Affairs and International Agreements Committees have all supported calls to develop a set of core standards or minimum product standards”.
