NFU17: A changing world for livestock

Brexit

Charles Sercombe, NFU Livestock Board chairman, said: “These are uncertain times and our industry has never felt as vulnerable as it does today. The impact of the referendum result will have a massive effect on all our lives. For the first time in my farming career, controlling the controllable may not be enough to keep businesses viable. But it is absolutely within our power, within our right and within our role to remind government that food security and self-sufficiency are massively important cogs in the supply chain.

“Support must go to active farmers. And we will undoubtedly need an agricultural policy to enable us to become more competitive and productive when we enter a more global market.”

Ireland

Breffni Carpenter, agricultural counsellor of Ireland to the EU, explained that Ireland is hoping for the “softest possible Brexit” as it’s in both our interests.

“Membership of a single market is fundamental to our economic strategy,” he stated. “The movement of produce and livestock and free trade between Northern Ireland and ROI needs to continue.” He stressed the importance of avoiding “mutually assured destruction” and explained how although Brexit is a UK policy, the effects will be felt throughout Ireland.

The bonfire of regulations

John Dracup, 2Sisters red meat livestock procurement director, said: “Maintaining our high red meat prices is dependent on the standards and quality criteria that we operate. To think that there will be a great ‘bonfire of legislation’ I fear is misleading you. But by joining up as an industry, and by working much more closely, both from a production side and a processing side, we get legislation that works for us all and delivers for us.”