Very quiet on EU-Canada deal

product still won’t be a runner for EU consumers.

In fact, a s Ir ish meat ex por ters look f rantically for alternatives to the potential chaos of a postBrexit UK market, Canada might actually present some ver y palatable meat expor ting oppor tunities.

In the same way that Irish beef is hoping to connect with the Irish diaspora on the US’s Eastern seaboard, similar oppor tunities exist within Canada, now that the 26.5pc impor t tar if f is removed on EU meat. Consider for a moment that Canada already impor ts €3bn of agrifood from Ireland — so we’re not an unknown.

Dair y could be even sweeter. T he sector is so highly protected in Canada that one industr y source likened it to the “Nor th Korea of dair y ing”.

As Irish dair y farmers have proved over the last year, they are among the lowest-cost producers in the EU, and can cer tainly undercut Canadian prices now that tarif fs as high as 50pc are removed from Irish ex por ts to that countr y.

CETA is not a f ree-for-all. Ef fectively, the Canadians have doubled the existing cheese quota to 32,000t.

However, the Irish have won some impor tant concessions, including pr ior it y access to 30pc of the new quota, and the inclusion of cheddar in the high qualit y cheese bracket that the quota is dominated by.

A gain, setting this new market access against the backdrop of a turbulent Br itish market that still accounts for a whopping 60pc of all Ir ish cheese expor ts — the equivalent of 88,000t — it is clear why CETA could be extremely valuable to Ir ish farmers over the coming years.

Despite all the talk about infant milk formula and protein isolates, cheese is still the dair y industr y ’s, to mix my metaphors, bread and butter.

Speak ing of butter, Kerr ygold is sure to f ly it in Canada . It ’s possibly the Ir ish dair y industr y ’s most iconic brand in the US already, and it doesn’t require a lot of imagination to see it appealing to Canadian consumers too.

At the end of the day, if we expect to expor t a f ull 95pc of what we produce, we can’t really af ford to be antiinternational trade, can we?