Angry farmers booed the newly appointed environment secretary at their annual conference on Wednesday after he failed to provide reassurances on post-Brexit food standards or extra help for those hit by widespread flooding.
The angry reaction from the audience in Birmingham came after George Eustice declined to commit the government to upholding existing UK standards after Brexit in future trade deals that would bar imports of cheap food cultivated in countries, such as the US, that have weaker regulation.
“I can’t provide any such assurances,” he told the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) conference when asked if Boris Johnson’s government would back an amendment to the new agriculture bill to impose tough standards on imported food.
The admission came as a further blow to farmers in England who face funding cuts under the proposed new subsidy regime and a restriction on overseas workers under new immigration rules after the Brexit transition period ends in January next year.
The agriculture bill amendment, added in the House of Lords, would bar the government from signing trade deals that do not require imported food to meet UK standards on safety, animal welfare and the environment.
The issue has become a flashpoint ahead of post-Brexit trade talks, especially with the US. Washington wants comprehensive access to the UK food market including the removal of barriers related to “sanitary and phytosanitary” standards in the industry, a sign that it wants to export products such as chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-treated beef to the UK.
UK farmers believe such a loosening of standards would undercut their businesses. Minette Batters, president of the NFU, told Mr Eustice: “When we have no assurance at all on the standard of food that does one thing: that puts these guys [farmers] out of business.”
Mr Eustice, himself from a farming family, said: “I think there is a way through this where you can ensure that products from other countries wanting to export to our markets meet our standards . . . there is room for discussion.”
The environment secretary was also taken to task over the official response to flooding that has left some of the UK’s main crop-growing regions under water.
He rejected calls for a public inquiry into flooding and increases to flood assistance funding, and would not be drawn on the specifics of his own planned visits to flood-hit areas.
The Environment Agency has said about 35,000 hectares of farmland in the Midlands and Yorkshire were flooded by Storm Dennis on February 15 and 16, compounding damage wrought by an earlier storm.
Andrew Ward, a Lincolnshire farmer, said: “We have suffered enormous flooding in our area. In November we had three metres of water over a large area of Lincolnshire, and Lincolnshire produces 20 per cent of the nation’s vegetables. We cannot keep allowing our industry, our farmers and our businesses to suffer like they are doing.”
Mr Eustice said he had visited Yorkshire, but again caused dismay when he said of other flood-hit areas: “I’ve been on the trains, I’ve seen the land is waterlogged.”
To shouts of “rubbish”, he cited the EU withdrawal agreement as the reason he could not promise exemptions for flood-hit farmers this year to crop requirements that they must meet in exchange for funding.
Ms Batters dismissed promises of funding for “natural” flood protection measures, saying: “If you have a month of rain in 24 hours, nature solutions just don’t mean anything. We are calling for absolute physical infrastructure change.”
Farmers argue key measures are not in place to protect their sector once the UK ends its current trade and migration arrangements with the EU at the end of the year.
A scheme to bring in overseas workers at present admits a fraction of the total needed for seasonal work, while farmers fear that the tapering of EU-style direct subsidies in England will leave a funding gap as new environmental funding schemes remain at the pilot stage. Separate plans are being developed for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Mr Eustice said he would look to expand the workers’ scheme and explore getting horticultural workers added to a list of shortage occupations, while he would also look at expanding payments under the existing Countryside Stewardship scheme to help bridge the funding gap.
