Brexit is real and hasn’t gone away, and new UK trade deals loom with very real impacts for Irish agriculture, despite what An Taisce would have you believe.
Any comprehensive, accountable analysis of external threats to the Irish economy will include the huge impact of the June 2016 UK vote to leave the EU and the single market.
Indeed a significant number of government initiated reports from the Central Bank, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Enterprise Ireland, Teagasc and other state bodies, clearly spelt out the significant detrimental impact of Brexit on Irish agriculture.
This impact relates to Irish cheddar cheese manufacturers and boneless beef exporters to the UK in particular.
Trade and diversification
What these reports universally emphasised was the need for the agri-sector to prioritise trade and product diversification investments.
We have had a number of reminders in recent days that a very significant element of the Brexit threat to Irish agriculture comes from the UK engaging in bilateral trade deals, which facilitate increased imports of food from cheaper lower cost regions to the UK.
This threatens displacement of Irish exports to the UK, both in price and quantum.
The proposed UK / Australia deal currently being negotiated, with its core formula of zero for zero tariffs, has significant implications in terms of increasing the volume of beef exported from Australia to the UK at lower prices, and displacing Irish beef in the UK market.
New Zealand waits next in line. New Zealand is engaged in its own Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with the UK, with the next round of talks scheduled for June and July.
In the case of New Zealand, the impact of a zero for zero deal would be even more significant and affect not just beef, but the dairy and sheepmeat sectors also.
Brexit is going nowhere
There are no shocks here, either in terms of the magnitude of Brexit impacts or the need for urgent action.
All the more remarkable though that the environmental lobby and An Taisce have written Brexit out of the plot as far as they are concerned.
In their ongoing diatribe against Irish agriculture, An Taisce completely dismisses Brexit as a challenge being addressed by cheese diversification investments in the dairy sector.
An Taisce suggests instead that these investments, which the organisation is currently blocking, don’t represent a market diversification strategy / bulwark against Brexit price and income threats.
Instead it believes it is a cunning attempt by outsiders to site investments in Ireland, that would not be allowed to go ahead in their respective native countries.
This notion of naive Irish and perfidious foreigners is, however, turned on its head when it is pointed out to the environmental lobby, that increasing demand for Irish dairy and meat products globally, is a reflection of global consumers choosing Ireland because they perceive that we have very high standards in sustainable food production.
Origin Green
‘Not at all’, we are told… These poor foreigners have been greenwashed by Irish cuteness and Origin Green.
Well which is it? Cute ‘hoor’ Irish or exploitative foreign capitalists? And where does foreign direct investment (FDI), which accounts for a huge chunk of Irish Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in all its pomp, fit into this conspiracy theory?
This reality-denying, confabulated nonsense or ‘flip-flopism’ surely underscores why self-anointed special interest groups, while entitled to a voice, are not entitled to a veto.
Lack of consideration for Brexit
To dismiss, as An Taisce constantly does, the biggest challenge to the Irish economy and Irish agri-sector of recent times – Brexit – smacks of extreme prejudice and a faint grasp of reality.
In the real world, from the date of the UK vote in June 2016, a range of Irish economy analyses highlighted the huge vulnerability of the dairy sector to Brexit, because of our dependence on the UK cheddar market.
A deeper analysis of the issue showed Ireland making approximately 200,000t of cheddar annually for the UK market, using approximately 2.2 billion litres of milk.
Over the next couple of years, a number of Irish dairy companies worked tirelessly in conjunction with state agencies, to construct cheese diversification projects, all involving the use of the existing Irish milk pool to make alternative cheese varieties such as Mozzarella (two projects), Dutch cheese and Norwegian Jarlsberg.
To characterise these Brexit diversification projects as “an overspill of dairy production in the wake of the lifting of quotas“, according to An Taisce, is mis-characterisation and a myth.
It ignores the very real impact of Brexit and its consequent trade and product diversification imperatives, including the trade discussions taking place this very week between the UK and Australia and the talks later this year between New Zealand and UK.
Brexit remains a real threat
In the real world, the Irish dairy sector has shown a capability and accountability in finding and executing cheese diversification projects in response to the real challenge of Brexit.
Brexit is real and is happening and must be responded too.
Blocking trade diversification responses to Brexit has real impact on jobs and incomes. Nonsensical conspiracy theories are not a response.