Double standards: The UK-Australian Free Trade agreement

Earlier in the year, the NFU Livestock Chair Richard Findlay proved unequivocally hostile to the deal. Australian agriculture risked being a sinister Trojan horse, undermining British standards. "There is no comparison whatsoever between the robust production methods in this country and in Australia – they simply do not compare due to sheer size and scale."

Australia, Findlay points out, was the world's biggest beef exporter in 2019 (in terms of value) and second largest (behind Brazil) in terms of volume. Such scale meant fewer regulations, a lower "assurance burden" and significantly lower production costs.

With little by way of fraternal feeling between Commonwealth nations, the NFU livestock chair also pointed his finger at differing standards of animal welfare between the countries. The UK government was contemplating an arrangement with a country that exported "hundreds of thousands of live cattle and over a million sheep on long sea journeys to Asia and the Middle East every year." The same UK government had also contemplated banning live exports for slaughter.

This point was picked up by Vicki Hird, the head of sustainable farming at Sustain, an agri-food group. Painting a picture of antipodean barbarity, Hird enumerated the darker aspects of Australian agricultural practices. Australia, for instance, permitted "the use of hormones and antibiotics to speed up growth as well as the removal of skin from live sheep ['mulesing', to prevent fly-strike], and they license almost double the number of highly hazardous pesticides as the UK." And just to make things that bit grimmer, Australian farmers also used feedlots, battery cages and sow stalls.

As for the agreed protections for British farmers, NFU President Minette Batters found little comfort, suggesting they were neither extensive nor effectual. Dairy would be fully liberalised after six years, sugar after eight, and beef and lamb after 15. Phil Stocker of the National Sheep Association also noted the absence of "any resolution on how TRQs could be managed in a way to limit potential damage to our own domestic trade".

A tone-deaf International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan sees little to bother the UK farming sector, or anybody else in Global Britain. For one thing, most Australian beef and sheep meat exports (somewhere in the order of 70%) made it to Asia-Pacific markets. "They're closer for them and they get great prices." She expected no "dramatic surge into UK markets" from Australian products but she was "very pleased to do things that will open up consumer choice." That is a choice that promises to be very costly indeed.