Sheep Farming

As we look to negotiate up to the wire all my instincts suggest we are heading to the very edge of the abyss, and as if we didn’t have enough to deal with anyway….This story tells us

Farmers are fearing for their sheep flocks as they face crippling export tariffs on the lamb they send to the EU.

Lamb is expected to be one of the sectors that suffers most in the event of No Deal.

The average tariff for the meat would be 48 per cent, raising concerns that No Deal would stop exports entirely. 

This would then mean Britain had too much lamb, which would drive down prices and make sheep farming unviable.

Mark Bridgeman, president of the Country Land & Business Association, which represents 30,000 rural businesses across England and Wales, said: ‘There’s no escaping that, in the event of No Deal, tariffs for exports into Europe will damage many farming businesses.

And with talks on a knife edge, Government must come forward with measures to support the most vulnerable sectors should there be no deal.’

He added: ‘The EU sells £33billion of agricultural products to the UK each year – almost £20billion more than we sell to them – so the Prime Minister is absolutely right to have confidence in the value of our market.

‘But make no mistake, without a decent free-trade agreement, thousands of farmers both in the UK and the EU would be at risk.’

Adam Quinney, a beef and lamb farmer in Warwickshire, said that such sky-high export tariffs on lamb would halt trade and do ‘significant long-term damage’ to the sheep industry.

He told Radio 4’s World At One yesterday: ‘If the tariffs come in and we have a 47 per cent exports tariff on lamb, in effect it will mean the majority of that trade will stop.

‘That trade is worth about £500million a year to British sheep farmers, so it is an important market for us.’