Warning over ‘wait and see’ attitude to Brexit
While adopting a “wait and see” attitude might be a natural response to the current political turmoil as the UK faces up to the difficult mechanics of leaving the EU, such an approach could see farming businesses sleep-walking into Brexit.
Warning that inertia wasn’t an option if businesses were to adapt, the chief executive of the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB), Jane King, said that facing up to the issues was key “at this pivotal time” for the industry.
Speaking to the press after a board meeting in Edinburgh yesterday, King said that it was crucial that her organisation helped signpost to the industry where it should be addressing key issues:
“With the average farm income standing in the region of £12,600, many Scottish farming families are in an absolutely precarious situation,” she said, “just burying heads in the sand is not the right solution”.
She said that producers would often have to face up to difficult choices: “And it is the role of the AHDB to provide not only the information required to help make these decisions but also to indulge in some straight talking and provide leadership by acting as an honest broker when these issues are being addressed.”
King said that while, for some, expansion and growing the business might be the right solution, for others these difficult discussions might revolve around leaving the industry, or introducing new measures such as share farming:
“But it us crucial that the industry wakes up and starts to address the issues which they are going to have to face up to – if producers can get ahead of the curve then they will have a future but if they hold back then things could be difficult.”
However she said that the AHDB, which has produced several wellreceived guides to various aspects of the Brexit process in the Horizon series of documents, could still do more to ensure that the information was getting to farmers.
On this front the release of a Scottish-focused document which would look at the likely effects of different post-brexit scenarios on Scotland would be published next month.
While King admitted that the uncertainty over where the levers of power would lie in future farm policy wasn’t making things easier, the organisation’s chief strategy officer, Tom Hind, said that the main scenarios could be outlined in the document.
“And while such documents can’t provide all the answers they can help producers make more sense of the issues – and it’s important to realise that taking a wait and see approach is taking the biggest risk of all.”
The duo admitted that with Scotland’s key beef, lamb and pork sectors being handled by QMS in Scotland, the feeling of AHDB “ownership” in the country might not be as high as it was south of the Border.