Brexit could result in higher food prices: farmers

Jun 28, 2016

UK recently voted to leave the European Union

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

Farmers in the United Kingdom are warning that food prices could rise as a result of the Brexit vote.

After last Friday’s referendum resulted in the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, the British pound fell as much as 13 per cent. That, paired with the UK’s need for imports, could result in higher prices at the grocery stores.

“Sadly, we only produce 60 per cent of the food consume, we’ve seen our self-sufficiency fall dramatically, so we are very dependent on imported food,” Meurig Raymond, president of the National Farmers Union, told the Guardian.

Grocery store

Raymond added that other local products could now be subject to export tariffs.

“We export 38 per cent of the lamb we produce in the UK into the EU…We exported in excess of 3m tonnes of wheat and barley into Europe,” he said.

Another factor facing producers is if the UK government will match the nearly $4bn USD that the EU pays in subsidies to farmers.

Raymond said in 2014, the average income of a farmer was about £20,000, or $26,571 USD. Of that amount, about 55 per cent of it was EU money.

The NFU will hold meetings beginning July 1 to determine exactly what the Brexit means for local farmers.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.