Post-brexit uncertainty for Scottish seed potatoes
It is still unclear as to whether there is a post-brexit cliff edge for Scottish seed potato producers but yesterday Professor Gerry Saddler, chief plant health officer for Scotland, highlighted some of the many hurdles that the industry faces once the country leaves the EU.
Over the past 20 years, the Scottish seed potato industry has built up an export market that now exceeds £100 million annually and to a point where tatties produced in this country end up as high health stock for more than 30 countries all around the world.
Critical to this trade has been the high health and quality standards – some originating in Scotland itself but others in aby theeu.
Now, according to Saddler, some hefty pieces of legislation will have to be transferred or mutually agreed in a very short timescale if interruption to this trade is to be avoided.
Speaking at an industry event in St Andrews, Saddler pointed out that currently some 13 per cent of seed produced in Scotland
is exported to EU countries.
However unless a tariff and regulatory trade deal can be worked out with Europe, then that market may be lost.
“We want to retain membership of the custom union of the EU,” he stated.
There are also problems with a no-deal scenario resulting in varieties not on the Common Catalogue of the EU having to be brought over to be on the National List of the UK so that they can be traded, he revealed.
While it might be thought that the main export markets for Scottish seed – Egypt and the North African countries – would be immune from the fallout of any Brexit deal, Saddler
warned that this might not be the case.
On future environmental regulations, Saddler was firmly of the view that even when the UK was out of Europe, this country would still have to abide by European standards. “If we wish to retain trade we will have to abide by their rules,” he said.
In response to a question he described gene editing as a “tricky issue” as the European Court of Justice had categorised it as genetic modification and had thus consigned it into a legislative box with many barriers to it being allowed and that if Scotland was to allow GM “it would give us problems.”