Concerns around the safety of chlorine-washed chicken may have dominated the Brexit-related coverage on the meat industry, but arguably bigger worries exist in the beef sector, where there’s a fear that an influx of cheap imports produced to lower standards could cripple the European market.
If exporters in South America, Australia, New Zealand and the US gain access to the UK, the NFU’s livestock board chairman, Charles Sercombe, warns that it could ”totally destabilise” the European market. “We’re only 63 per cent self-sufficient in beef and most of our imports come from the Republic of Ireland,” he says. “If that were to be displaced, the Irish would have put theirs into Europe and it’d pull that market to pieces as well. There’d be severe knock-on effects.”
In lamb, meanwhile, the main concerns centre on exports, and more specifically what will happen if the UK loses favourable access to the European market. At present, there is a strong export market for British lamb due to the post-referendum devaluation of the pound and a global shortage of supply, but the price of lamb could plummet if the UK either loses the EU market or has to pay excessive tariffs to trade on it.
“We currently export 38 per cent of our lamb, of which 95 per cent goes to Europe,” Sercombe says. “If we can’t access the European market to take out that extra third of production, the UK sheep market will come under severe pressure.”
This problem could potentially be exacerbated by the fact that demand for lamb in the UK is currently on the wane, with Kantar data showing a nine per cent decrease in retail sales over the last 52 weeks.
When it comes to labour, there are also concerns that the restriction of free movement could harm recruitment in the meat industries. Richard Griffiths of the British Poultry Council says poultry businesses are already struggling to recruit enough workers and are having to pay considerably more to attract new workers. Around 60 per cent of workers in the sector are foreign nationals, while in beef and lamb this proportion reaches 65 to 70 per cent.
On a more positive note, AHDB’s beef and lamb strategy director Ryan sees opportunities to gain access to new markets in both beef and lamb. Negotiations with Japan and China are ongoing, and market access was recently agreed with the Philippines for beef and lamb, and with Canada for processing beef. “There are opportunities, but we have to be realistic that those market access conversations take a long time,” she says. “Market access to China for pork took four and a half years.”
In terms of consumer trends, there has been a gradual shift away from whole chickens and larger meat joints as the number of one- and two-person households grows. Sales of mini joints are rising, says Ryan, and in beef specifically, processors are looking for smaller carcasses that produce smaller steaks to match retail demand.
Moving forward, productivity is the main area that Sercombe would like policy to focus on in beef and lamb, with UK farmers often challenged for falling behind other countries and sectors in this regard. The NFU chief would like to see productivity addressed in three ways: by tackling endemic diseases such as Bovine Viral Diarrhoea; by improving the animals’ genetic makeup so that animals grow quicker, produce more and emit fewer greenhouse gases; and by improving their fertility so “we can produce more from less”.
Another priority for Sercombe is to improve the traceability of livestock by introducing a UK database based on real-time data. Defra is currently developing a centrally-managed Livestock Information Programme, but Sercombe says the government “seems to have run out of funding for it”. He stresses the importance of getting it up and running after Brexit because “we need to be able to demonstrate that we’ve got the best traceability system in the world when we’re trying to open up new export markets”.
In terms of subsidies, Sercombe has welcomed Defra’s plans for a move away from an area-based payments system, saying he’d like to see more of the funding directed to active farmers according to levels of production. In poultry and pork, this is not an issue since both sectors are unsubsidised. Griffiths (from the British Poultry Council) and Zoe Davies of the National Pig Association, agree this makes their respective sectors more resilient to Brexit, but Davies says there are many areas in the pork sector that could be improved by adopting new technology and reinvesting in new housing and infrastructure.
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