It has been a particularly brutal year for Liz Webster, who farms 647 hectares in Wiltshire. About £400 per animal has been wiped off the price she can get for her beef cattle – a hefty blow when feed, energy and fertiliser costs are going through the roof. The livestock that typically fetch £2,000 to £3,000 each are now being undercut by a flood of cheaper meat from Australia, the result of one of the new trade deals the government has signed since the UK left the European Union. Supermarket beef prices 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 compete,” she says.
“Liz Webster loses £400 per beef animal as Australian imports flood market after Brexit trade deal.”
The damage extends far beyond beef. A study published last year found the quantity of farmed exports to the EU, the UK’s 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 showed poultry exports fell 38%, beef exports 24%, lamb 14% and dairy 16%. For consumers, Brexit has already added £7bn to food prices, according to a 2023 study.
Nor has Brexit been the only disaster to strike in the last decade. Covid, energy shocks from the Ukraine and Iran wars, and extreme weather events have compounded the damage. “There’s been so many global challenges, to try and decipher how much is down to leaving the EU and how much down to global turmoil is difficult,” says Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU. “But we always warned that [the issue with Brexit] wasn’t going to be the immediate impact, it was sort of a death by a thousand cuts, a slow burn, and that’s exactly what we’re now seeing.”
Brexit brought three massive changes: withdrawal from the EU’s common agricultural policy, trade deals that let in imports produced to lower standards, and trade friction with the UK’s biggest food export market. Against that backdrop, farmers are also grappling with changes to environmental and animal welfare regulations, and visa difficulties for seasonal workers.
As Webster’s Gloucester cattle become ever rarer, the question is how much more British farming can take before home-grown food becomes a luxury few can afford.