‘Bad for us and bad for food shoppers’ Importing cheap food is a false economy, according to Welsh farmers

WELSH farmers fear all their hard work could be undermined by cheap food imports and unfair competition.

Post-Brexit trade deals may result in lower prices but this may be a “false economy”, according to Anglesey’s producers.

As well as compromising food security, such deals could damage environmental damage and fail to protect UK consumers, said FUW Anglesey vice-chairman William Spencer Hughes.

And in the Vale of Glamorgan, one farming family warned that 25 years of business building could be swept away by the Agriculture Bill.

This may open the floodgates to food imports that lack UK production standards, said Rhodri Davies, who with wife Gaynor operates a range of enterprises near Llanwit Major.

Both sets of farmers were addressing MPs invited to listen to industry concerns.

On Anglesey (inset picture) local MP Virginia Crosbie – who sits on the Agriculture Bill Committee – heard from FUW officials worried that imported food would fail to meet UK standards, despite ministerial assurances.

They’ve been alarmed by recent comments from farming minister Victoria Prentis – she referred to the risk of “creating considerable uncertainty” by legally protecting food standards in any trade deal.

“In reality it is the UK Government which would be proactively creating such uncertainty,” said FUW Anglesey Richard Williams.

“It would be taking a position which deliberately abandons our EU export markets and severs the established supply chains which extend across Europe.”

In the Vale of Glamorgan Rhodri Davies raised similar concerns when he met his MP, Alun Cairns. Since arriving at his farm in 1995, he has set up a portfolio chairman of diversified business interests.

One venture, Farmers Pantry, supplies the family’s two butchers shops near their farm. Meat from the farm’s 295-head beef herd also heads to another family-run business, Rosedew Farm Wedding Venue.

In addition, the couple run a campsite and, with son DafiSion, grow a variety of crops such as sugar beet, wheat and potatoes.

Rhodri fears the interests of UK producers will be ignored in the rush to secure trade deals.

“Some of the food that could land on our supermarket shelves will have been produced to standards that are illegal here,” he said. “It makes food items far cheaper but it doesn’t protect our consumers and it also doesn’t protect us as food producers.”