The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) is encouraging agri-food businesses and traders to take part in its next online EU Exit event aimed at providing information to help them navigate changes.

The first three online events took place in November and December and were attended by almost 1,500 participants including potato merchants, nurseries, meat and dairy food business operators, distribution companies, egg producers, bakeries and fish processors.

The fourth in a series of webinars will take place on Thursday, January 7 at 2.00pm and will focus on providing the most up-to-date information on what the EU/UK trade deal means for Sanitary & Phytosanitary (SPS) checks and other trading procedures.

There will also be two more in-depth sessions on the NI Trader journey covering retail goods and non-retail goods. Agri-food business owners and traders must pre-register on the department’s website to attend.

Announcing the forthcoming event, a DAERA spokesperson said: “With the transition period ending at 11:00pm on December 31 2020, we are very aware of the need to maintain engagement with our stakeholders and provide the most up-to-date information to help businesses deal with the changes starting from January 1, 2021.

Feedback received from the first three events in November and December has informed topics for this upcoming event.

“The event will give participants the chance to ask questions about the issues most relevant to their particular sector and we encourage all agri-food businesses and traders to register and take part.”

Following the approval of last week’s trade agreement between the UK and EU, the DAERA spokesperson added: “We will continue our engagement with businesses in the coming weeks as the new arrangements come into operation, to help to keep businesses updated on the current position.”