Sheep sector ‘insulted’ by TAC

CONCERNS from British sheep farmers over the recently agreed UK-Australia free trade deal have been “undermined” and “insulted” by the Government’s Trade and Agriculture Commission (TAC), according to sector leaders.

Established in July 2020 by Liz Truss, the then Secretary of State for International Trade, the TAC is tasked with scrutinising new free trade agreements once they are signed, and inform Parliament of their impact on UK farming.

The National Sheep Association (NSA) has spoken out in response to a recent TAC assessment of the UKAustralia

agreement, which it claims suggested that “differences between the nation’s farming standards are not significant or important”, and that industry concerns have been “over-exaggerated”.

Serious health and welfare issues such as ‘mulesing’, where skin is removed from the rear of a lamb to prevent flystrike, transport distances, space in transit and antibiotic use have been “dismissed as minute details that are over-exaggerated by UK sheep producers”, the NSA adds.

Phil Stocker, chief executive of the NSA, said: “Not only does this attitude of the TAC undermine the extremely high welfare standards UK producers uphold but is an insult to UK consumers, who value our product and it’s high production standards.

“Segregation in supply chains could well ensure goods imported to the UK may be produced to accepted standards, but it does little to affect the wider production standards in Australia. The assessment compares [animal] welfare standards to cost only, rather than considering the values demanded of UK farmers by

UK consumers.”

The NSA submitted a detailed response to the UK-Australia deal at the start of the year, in which it sought to highlight the issues the free trade agreement provided for UK producers.

It now believes the issues seem to have been “brushed off as a minor inconvenience”, in turn creating “yet another blow to UK producers”.

Under the deal, there will be Tariff Rate Quotas on beef and sheep meat imports. These tariffs are set at 35,000 tonnes for beef and 25,000 tonnes for sheep-meat, rising at regular annual increments over 10 years to reach 110,000 tonnes for beef and 75,000 tonnes for sheep meat by year 10.

Mr Stocker said: “I was highly offended to hear the chair of the TAC, Professor Lorand Bartels, state that the farming industry had overreacted to the risks of the trade deal.

“As a major stakeholder in this deal the NSA’s overarching assessment was that there was likely to be very little immediate risk, but that the deal was opening UK sheep farmers to levels of risk in years to come considering the political, climate and trade-related volatility that we are seeing globally.”