Japan market for Welsh lamb, says Cairns, amid civil unrest warnings
WELSH Secretary Alun Cairns has suggested new global markets, including in Japan, will be available to sheep meat producers as the Prime Minister was urged to “stop playing Russian roulette with the industry”.
Mr Cairns said the UK was focusing on other markets across the world outside of the EU as Boris Johnson’s Government ramped up preparations for a no-deal Brexit.
But Plaid Cymru Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) pointed out via Twitter the Japanese market had been opened up to Welsh lamb by the EU-Japan trade deal, with the UK poised to leave the EU on October 31.
Mr Cairns told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are now looking to the growth that will come from right around the world, 90% of global growth will come from outside of the EU, but we don’t want to close our back on the European market either and that’s why working hard to get a deal is important, but of course there needs to be a shift in attitude and a positive response to the cause that we’re making.”
In the event of a no-deal, there could be a 40% tariff on lamb and sheep meat exports if the UK ends up trading with the EU on World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms.
Asked what other markets would be available to farmers by October 31, Mr Cairns said: “I would point to the market in Japan that has just been opened to Welsh and British sheep for example, now that is a new market for us, so exports are already taking place there, but that is a significant market for which we haven’t even scratched the surface yet.”
Asked if he was suggesting there would be a trade deal with Japan by November 1, Mr Cairns said: “I’m saying that Welsh sheep is already being exported to Japan, it’s a new market that was agreed earlier this year, so therefore that is a new opportunity to the sheep sector that hasn’t had that before this year.”
Mr Cairns insisted that as an independent trading nation “there will be these markets and these opportunities there”.
At the Royal Welsh Show last week, farming unions warned that protests could follow a no deal Brexit.
Speaking at the show, the Farmers’ Union ofWales(FUW) predicted protests, while NFU Cymru said it would not rule out campaigning to stop Brexit entirely. Meat PromotionWalessaid the impact of no deal would be “off the Richter scale”.
FUW president Glyn Roberts said: “If the farming community have their backs against the wall, the only way they’re going to get from there is fighting their way through.”
Asked what he would say to those who said they would pursue civil unrest because their exports markets would be destroyed in the event of any autumn nodeal scenario, Mr Cairns said: “New markets have already opened up and there are new protocols in place for additional markets as well.”
National Farmers’ Union (NFU) president Minette Batters said the mass slaughter of livestock was “absolutely something that we want to avoid at all costs”, as she queried where lamb products would go if farmers were “tariffed out of the EU market”.
She told Today that the “bottom line is we’re exporting 40% of our sheep production, we are the second largest producer of sheep meat in the world, so if we are priced... we’re tariffed out of the EU market, where does that 40% go?”
Ms Batters warned that “trade deals don’t just get picked off the shelf in a couple of months”.
She suggested that procurement arrangements could be changed, as she argued that moves aimed at opening up market opportunities in the US and China “isn’t happening”.
She told Today: “That (slaughter of livestock) is the last thing anybody would want to see happen because we want to see farmers have viable businesses at the end of this. There are things that can be done, we could go to whole British procurement across our hospitals, our schools. Government buying standards, Government contracts at the moment, those are not based on British sourcing at all and they could be.
“We could look at and should be looking right now at opening up market opportunities in China, but that isn’t happening.
“There’s also opportunities in the United States that could be happening right now, but it isn’t happening.”
Helen Roberts, development officer for the National Sheep Association (NSA) in Wales called on Mr Johnson to “stop playing Russian roulette with the industry which he appears to be doing at the moment”.
She told Today: “If we do go out with a no-deal it will be absolutely catastrophic, even if it’s just for a few months.”
Asked about the possibility of civil unrest, including roadblocks and tractor protests, among sheep producers, she said: “I think they will, I think it’s time to come and stand up for ourselves and be counted.”