The UK needs a more nuanced approach to agricultural trade – let’s ditch the kneejerk reactions, for a start.
I argued for Brexit. Don’t get me wrong: I could see the arguments on both sides, but working in agriculture, I knew the folly of area-based payments to farmers. They neither improved the wellbeing of those involved in farming (unless you happened to be in a supply chain upstream or downstream from agriculture) nor benefited the environment. Across myriad indicators (the average age of farmers, the quality of water bodies, the viability of rare species) European common agricultural policy money was ineffectual at driving change. Taxpayers – and farmers – deserved better. Leaving the EU was one way to achieve reform in this key policy area, so I was happy to argue for it.
As a policy adviser at the time, however, I was acutely aware that it was never just a question of agricultural subsidies to farmers. It was always considering the impact of environmental laws on producers, addressing the appalling links between health and food or, critically, seeking to understand the often hidden role of trade on agricultural production. The Swiss are good at talking about the role of trade in protecting agri-food producers. They even cost it into their calculations of farm gate government support. Inside the EU, criticising the protectionist common external tariff was attempted by only the bravest libertarian thinkers. Outside the EU, Brexiteers promised a brave new dawn of global Britain, keeping our nation of wealthy consumers at the forefront of progressive trade deals and cheap food. I was aware of the deep complexities at the root of this tree of promise even then, but there was no way that we could have foreseen a global trade war between the US and China, nor a challenge to the multilateral rules order that we may soon be relying on to guide all our non-free trade agreement relations, potentially including with the EU.
In all this complexity, it is perhaps understandable that sub-optimal performance reigns. But one stand-out failing for me is the way the trade debate has been handled by farming campaign groups. I have sympathy on one level. Trade is devilishly complicated, and we need an effective way to hold our political masters to account. Economics guides political decision-making, so the lack of a working understanding of economic theory excludes the vast majority of voters from informed voting. In the case of trade, the entire tangled complexity of post-Brexit trading choices seems to have been rendered down, as least as far as the public is concerned, to the presence or absence of a post-slaughter dressing on a chicken. This is the basis on which our political discourse on the subject proceeds.
The entire tangled complexity of post-Brexit trading choices seems to have been rendered down to the presence or absence of a post-slaughter dressing on a chicken
Now, I am all for an informed political debate, but that is why I disapprove of the chlorinated chicken debate even further. Fear is the go-to marketing oeuvre of the populist and the extremist, and we are encouraged to fear the dangerous powers of the chlorinated chicken. It is all the more irritating because any rational argument against it is defeated by the emotional resonance of fear. You wouldn’t eat chlorinated chicken, would you? Even if it’s safe? And legal in the US, a country of 450 million consumers? No? Oh. Why not? Why are we even arguing about this?
And that to me is the folly of the collective effort put into the trade debate by many farmers. Informed producers in the UK understand the role trade plays and will continue to play in meeting the various needs of UK consumers at every price point. London happens to sit on a navigable river, which means that food has been imported here ever since navy sailors got hungry. UK farmers have since then been coping with various forms of competition from overseas producers, whether fair or unfair. (For an excellent food history of the Commonwealth, I suggest The Taste of Empire by Lizzie Collingham.)
Insight from the National Pig Association reveals a more measured approach to the role of trade. The UK is only 54% self-sufficient in pork and UK producers have higher costs of production because we have higher welfare standards. However, the NPA points out that this is not a bad thing. UK consumers want higher-value cuts, pigs produce a wide range of lower- and higher-value cuts, we need export deals to shift the low-value stuff and import deals to top up the high-value stuff. It all balances out.
And post-coronavirus the UK pig industry has done pretty well because our domestic markets are in high-value retail. The cheaper imports tend to go into food service, and that is the sector that’s been clobbered. It will also be the sector that’s clobbered again if new, cheaper imports are available from a lower cost base. To put it another way, US pork producers will be competing with Danish and Dutch producers, not UK producers. UK producers need to do what we are good at: producing super high-quality and high-welfare meat for a very discerning local customer. The value mindset of the mass market is not where we should be wasting effort.
The more controversial reason for not being so concerned about low-value protein imports is that the rise of meat alternatives continues to dominate the investment sector globally. In an economy that promotes the consumer welfare standard as the predominant consideration in market organisation, the relentless quest to pursue efficiency as a means of cost-reduction continues to push our farm animals to their genetic limits. The logical consequence of this is both consumer push-back and technological disruption. Pigs may be used for everything but their oink, but the really inefficient thing about growing chicken is putting a beak and feathers on it. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Chicken will be coming to a nugget near you very soon.
King Cnut famously tried to stop the incoming tide by shouting at it to go away. I fear the farming industry exhibits a similar short-sightedness with chlorinated chicken. We need a much more considered and optimistic approach to UK agriculture if we are not to squander the precious public sentiment that has been built around our sector during the coronavirus crisis.
