No-deal Brexit means return of battery eggs, farmers’ union warns
More grist to the mill in terms of rural Brexit concerns. This story tells us:
Eggs from battery hens will return to British supermarket shelves if the government fails to strike a new trading deal with the EU and crashes out of the bloc, the National Farmers’ Union has warned.
The NFU says the government has ignored its pleas to put tariffs on eggs to protect against cheaper rivals from countries such as the US where caging hens is allowed.
“We will be importing eggs produced in those very same cages we banned in 2012,” said the NFU president, Minette Batters.
Tariffs on farm and other produce will come in at the end of the transition period after Brexit whether a deal with the EU is done or not, and will affect all imports from third countries.
But the NFU is baffled by the decision by the government to put tariffs on lamb to protect vulnerable sheep farmers, but not to impose them on eggs or wheat.