‘British food will disappear’: trade deal after Brexit is hitting UK farmers hard

F or Liz Webster, who farms 647 hectares (1600 acres) in Wiltshire, south west England, the latest impact of Brexit has been particularly brutal. About £400 per animal has been wiped off the price she can get for her beef cattle, a hefty blow at a time when all the inputs – feed, energy, fertiliser – are going through the roof. The fall in price, on livestock that typically fetch £2,000 to £3,000 per animal, is the result of a flood of cheaper meat arriving from Australia, the result of one of the new trade deals the government has signed since the UK left the European Union. Prices for beef in the supermarkets have remained broadly the same, but farmers have seen their income plummet. “It’s just inevitable that if it continues, British food will disappear, unless it’s niche, appealing to a particular wealthy market, because in the mainstream supermarkets British food won’t be able to complete,” she says. For farmers, it seems Brexit is the gift that keeps on taking away. A study published last year found the quantity of farmed exports to the EU, the biggest market for farm produce, had fallen by nearly half (47%) and the value by 35%, while the variety of exports also reduced by a third. Separate analysis by the National Farmers’ Union published earlier this year found exports from the poultry sector fell by 38%, beef exports 24%, lamb 14% and dairy 16% . Brexit has also cost the UK consumer – a study in 2023 found it had already added £7bn to food prices for consumers . …