Empty fields and soaring prices - what Brexit means for our food industry

Thinking of Sussex success stories such as our burgeoning wine industry, it’s certainly not because they are typically shy at coming forward.

So why have none of our local farmers and food producers gone on the record as to their fears around Brexit and have instead relied on national bodies such as the National Farmers Union and Food and Drink Federation to champion their voice?

With a new government now in place – at least as I write this – which seems intent on rattling the cage of our European neighbours with an increasingly hostile threat of no deal, I thought it was time to pick up the phone and ask some of the many Sussex food and drink businesses I’ve worked with over the years why they have kept their heads under the parapet.

The result of those conversations has been illuminating at best and frightening at worse.

Project Fear is very real, but not in the sense that the Brexiteers constantly state.

Over the past 40 years, British agriculture, and food and drink production, has aligned itself not only to EU regulations but also to the expectation of free access to the single market: the biggest free trade area in the world now the EU has agreed a deal with Japan.

For a small business, while the single market reduces administrative red tape, it has also meant they have invested time and money in creating export markets across the continent, whether Sussex wine to Sweden, gin produced in Brighton to the Netherlands or South Coast shellfish to France.

Producers are petrified of upsetting the apple cart with their established export partners and European buyers, so are keeping very quiet publicly about their fears so as not to lose hard-won trading relationships that have taken years to build and nurture.

What would a hard Brexit on October 31 look like for our farming and food and drink industry? Overnight World Trade Organisation tariffs of 40 per cent or more on meat, for example, would be a huge blow to our farmers as there would be no immediate significant new markets to sell their produce into.

About 90 per cent of British lamb is exported to the EU. Sheep farmers across the country are frightened by not only what that means for their family livelihoods but also what that means for their beasts – and there are currently approximately 23 million sheep in the UK.

It appears the Government is suggesting it will buy at market price the animals, but with no market for the meat, this could mean potentially a mass slaughter of perfectly healthy animals – akin to the apocalyptic scenes we witnessed during the BSE crisis – and farmers with empty fields.

We also already know that farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit staff to tend their crops.

Migrant workers from Eastern Europe have been a valuable asset to British farmers, providing a skilled and dedicated workforce at an affordable cost.

Already with the drop in the value of sterling, alongside the general feeling that Europeans are no longer welcome to work here, farmers are having an enormous amount of difficulty finding staff.

A good example of this is the soft fruits sector, which has grown exponentially in recent years.

Today, farmers are having to leave some of their crops on the plant to rot because there simply is not the labour to hand-pick them.

Producers certainly are not immune from the fall-out of Brexit either. We all know of local coffee roasters and chocolate makers, and distillers and brewers.

While they are making their product here in Sussex their core ingredients are often imported, whether coffee or cocoa beans, or juniper and hops.

Since the referendum, the pound has dropped massively against both the US dollar and Euro in which these raw materials are traded in.

The pound is now worth 30 cents lower against the Euro than before the Brexit vote. That means huge increases in overhead costs for small businesses who are already trading with slim margins.

There is also some concern about statements that consumers needn’t be worried about increased food prices after Brexit, because the Government has it in its power to apply zero tariffs on imports.

This will have the effect of completely undermining the food and farming industry, as cheap imports from countries that do not have the same welfare, labour and environmental standards will rapidly undercut our home grown producers.

The EU is protectionist in some areas for a very good reason.

And while I am obviously not a trade negotiation expert, I would guess that introducing zero tariffs on imports in a last minute desperate attempt to keep supermarket shelves stocked and prevent social unrest, would significantly weaken the UK’s hand when it comes to setting up new bilateral deals.

Despite the claims of Liam Fox and now Liz Truss, the UK simply will not have deals in place to in any way replace the 45 per cent of our current national export to the EU.

For someone sat at home, these figures are abstract and meaningless but to business and employers the cavalier, ideologically driven approach is petrifying.

The US Congress has only in the last few days said that they will stall any US-UK trade deal should the UK undermine the Good Friday Agreement in any way, so the Irish border continues to be the hedge that we cannot find a way to jump.

But perhaps the biggest reason that local food and drink businesses are keeping quiet about Brexit is that they fear a consumer backlash.

With the country still pretty much split on 50/50 lines, a misplaced or misinterpreted word about Brexit could effectively alienate half of a business’s customer base.

Big businesses can get away with making grandiose statements on Brexit, however a local farmer or craft food producer based in the Tory heartlands of the South East could genuinely be risking their livelihood by making their point of view heard.

The Brexiteers bang the drum of tearing up EU rules and regulations and freeing the UK of the tyranny of Brussels.

Yet having been one of the three major power players at the Brussels table for 40 years, and perhaps a greater influencer of small EU nations than France or Germany, we helped draft those regulations; they weren’t imposed upon us, we helped write them.

And our food and drink industries have formed their entire business models around those rules, whilst taking for granted the huge benefits of the customs union and single market membership.

I think it’s important for both Leavers and Remainers to take a breath and look at the structure of our food and farming industries.

Most farmers are small family businesses; much of our food and drink production is done by small to medium sized businesses.

They are employers of local people, guardians of the British countryside that we so take for granted and are also passionate about the quality and provenance of their produce.

The word in the fields, farms, and vineyards of Sussex is that Brexit – and particularly a no-deal Brexit – will irreversibly change that for the worse, not the better.