Prime Minister David Cameron has today said that leaving the EU would have the immediate impact of increasing food prices.
NFU Deputy General Martin Haworth has confirmed that the study British Agriculture; The implications of a UK exit from the EU, commissioned by the NFU from the Wageningen University, backs up this increase. “The reason for this is that if we are outside the European single market - where three quarters of our food imports come from - the cost of importing will rise and so food prices will also rise”, he said. “This trade effect would be amplified if sterling were to weaken significantly against the euro.
“Of itself, high retail food prices would be bad news for consumers but not necessarily bad for farmers. However, most of those who are advocating that the UK should leave the EU say that food prices would fall because we could trade more openly with the rest of the world. For example, Michael Gove has stated this recently. So, a very likely response to the prospect of higher prices would be for a future government to reduce tariffs unilaterally in order to keep food prices low for consumers.
“This in turn would open up our market to imports produced to different – and potentially much lower standards of animal welfare and environmental impact - and as our Wageningen study showed this would significantly reduce UK farm incomes in all sectors.”