UK Farming Roundtable agrees principles for policy post-Brexit

The UK Farming Roundtable is made up of a number of organisations including the NFU, NFU Cymru, NFU Scotland and the Ulster Farmers Union.

In the statement, it was proposed that a UK policy framework for farming should:

• Respect and maintain the current devolution settlement of policy, and regulation to the constituent parts of the United Kingdom should be respected and maintained.
• Ensure the UK’s various governments, parliaments and regulators take every step to retain and protect a single market access for food, agricultural commodities, live animals and plant and plant products throughout the UK.
• Develop distinct agricultural policies to replace the Common Agricultural Policy, and farming ministers across the UK should ensure that potential differences in application of agricultural policy should not adversely impact on trade within the UK.
• Establish a guiding principle that no single country determines or curtails UK policy in the rest of the UK. Farming ministers across the UK and agricultural departments must establish and maintain regular, formal and cooperative arrangements to manage policy, legislation and delivery of regulation across the UK economic area. 
• Ensure no part of the UK should be able to act, or avoid action, that threatens to curtail access for other parts of the UK to third country markets, or that question the UK’s adherence to its international agreements.

The group welcomed the government’s commitment to provide the same cash total in funds for farm support as is currently paid out under the CAP. In the longer term, with the development of a new domestic agricultural policy, it is calling for at least the same level of public investment in agriculture to be retained.